[SOLVED] Higher end PC lagging in almost every game

[PlasticQuarters]

I lag in almost every game that I play and have since I purchased this pc. I cannot solve it. I have done fresh installs of windows, I have flashed my bios, and I have updated every driver to no effect. I have ran benchmarks and stress tests all to no avail. My specs are as follows

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 5
CPU: Intel i7 8700k
Video Card: EVGA RTX 2070 XC Gaming
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4 3000MHz
Hard Drives: SAMSUNG 860 EVO 1TB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Cooling: NZXT Kraken x62 280mm
Monitor: ASUS ROG Swift PG278QR 27" 1440p 1ms 165Hz
Case: Phanteks Evolv X
Power Supply: EVGA Supernova G3 1000w

I cannot for the life of me figure out why it lags in almost every game that I play. I am out of ideas and any help would be appreciated. It is a strange stutter and is sometimes really bad and other times almost bearable.

 

[dorsai]

What games are you trying to play? Online multiplayer or single player games which do not require connection to an online server ?

 

[PlasticQuarters]

What games are you trying to play? Online multiplayer or single player games which do not require connection to an online server ?

Both I play CSGO and I also play games like the witcher and divinity 2. Basically every genre out there. Every single type of game suffers from stutter.

 

[dorsai]

The reason I asked was to determine if your problem is simply internet lag caused by a poor internet connection...you can test your connection at speedtest.net

Ideally you would want a ping well below 100 but you can still play some games at a higher ping without too much lag.

If your internet connection tests ok then you'll need to look at your hardware...lag is usually caused by one of the following :

- a failing power supply that can't properly feed your GPU the power it needs

- an over heating issue where either the CPU or GPU is throttling to protect itself - which may not show up as a failed stress test - you'd have to constantly monitor temps to look for the spikes up and down

- a failing hard drive

 

[PlasticQuarters]

The reason I asked was to determine if your problem is simply internet lag caused by a poor internet connection...you can test your connection at speedtest.net

Ideally you would want a ping well below 100 but you can still play some games at a higher ping without too much lag.

If your internet connection tests ok then you'll need to look at your hardware...lag is usually caused by one of the following :

- a failing power supply that can't properly feed your GPU the power it needs

- an over heating issue where either the CPU or GPU is throttling to protect itself - which may not show up as a failed stress test - you'd have to constantly monitor temps to look for the spikes up and down

- a failing hard drive

See and that is the strange part. I have 450mb down so it is definitely not my internet. Ping is also not an issue. My power supply was purchased around 6 months ago. Is there an easy way to determine if it is failing? I do monitor my temps constantly. My cpu never gets above 55 degrees and my gpu runs around 70-73 under a full load. When i installed my GPU to the power supply I used two of the cords (the correct name is escaping me) instead of daisy chaining it. Could that cause issues? My HDD is pretty old and very well might be failing. The problem is that it doesn't matter which drive I install it to. I get the stuttering on both the HDD and SSD.

 

[dorsai]

If you get stuttering on both drives that would mostly rule them out...maybe try with one disconnected if possible to test if one or the other is causing PCI bus stalls.

I would be looking at the power supply though...have you completely unplugged all of the power supply connections and re-plugged them ? Maybe one is not seated properly. EVGA is a good brand...I run one myself...but even good brands can have bad PSUs on occasion. There are power supply testers available from places like NewEgg or Amazon that are not terribly expensive...the problem is they don't place a real load on the supply, they typically only test voltages. The only way to really be sure is to replace the PSU with a known good unit and see if the problem occurs under load conditions...unfortunately if you don't have an available spare to test with you may have to buy one and then return it if the same issue occurs.

 

[PlasticQuarters]

If you get stuttering on both drives that would mostly rule them out...maybe try with one disconnected if possible to test if one or the other is causing PCI bus stalls.

I would be looking at the power supply though...have you completely unplugged all of the power supply connections and re-plugged them ? Maybe one is not seated properly. EVGA is a good brand...I run one myself...but even good brands can have bad PSUs on occasion. There are power supply testers available from places like NewEgg or Amazon that are not terribly expensive...the problem is they don't place a real load on the supply, they typically only test voltages. The only way to really be sure is to replace the PSU with a known good unit and see if the problem occurs under load conditions...unfortunately if you don't have an available spare to test with you may have to buy one and then return it if the same issue occurs.

Well I will have to do that then. Another odd thing is that I will occasionally have moments where things run fine and there is no stutter. It's always brief but it does sometimes occur. Oh and could not daisy chaining do it? I always thought that it was better to not daisy chain but I could be wrong.

 

[dorsai]

It's always brief but it does sometimes occur. Oh and could not daisy chaining do it?

It's possible daisy chaining could do it...it would depend on how much current the EVGA Supernova G3 1000w puts out on each PCI-e power socket. I'd image the 2070 doesn't pull anywhere near what a healthy Supernova G3 1000w puts out though. The min recommend PSU for the 2070 is 600w and the max power draw is listed as 215w (215w / 12v = 17.9amps). Remember the GPU pulls power from the PCI-e slot also so that worse case 17.9amp draw wouldn't all be coming off that one PCI-e power connector.

 

[PlasticQuarters]

It's possible daisy chaining could do it...it would depend on how much current the EVGA Supernova G3 1000w puts out on each PCI-e power socket. I'd image the 2070 doesn't pull anywhere near what a healthy Supernova G3 1000w puts out though. The min recommend PSU for the 2070 is 600w and the max power draw is listed as 215w (215w / 12v = 17.9amps). Remember the GPU pulls power from the PCI-e slot also so that worse case 17.9amp draw wouldn't all be coming off that one PCI-e power connector.

Well damn it isn't daisy chained. I just thought that maybe daisy chaining it would fix it. I will buy the psu tester to start and then go from there. I might just take it in to a technician at this point. Could it be that the 2070 just can't cut it at 2k 144hz?

 

[dorsai]

I don't think the 2070 would have any issue at all gaming at 1440p.

At this point I still think your best bet is to start isolating out hardware one item at a time until you find whats causing the issue. Test or even better swap out the PSU then move to more in depth troubleshooting.

If the PSU swap doesn't resolve it then I would remove everything from the motherboard except the boot drive, one memory stick, and the GPU...get as minimal as possible and try it...then add in each item one at a time until the issue comes back and you've found the problem. It's a pain to do but it's what any good technician would do.

 

[PlasticQuarters]

I don't think the 2070 would have any issue at all gaming at 1440p.

At this point I still think your best bet is to start isolating out hardware one item at a time until you find whats causing the issue. Test or even better swap out the PSU then move to more in depth troubleshooting.

If the PSU swap doesn't resolve it then I would remove everything from the motherboard except the boot drive, one memory stick, and the GPU...get as minimal as possible and try it...then add in each item one at a time until the issue comes back and you've found the problem. It's a pain to do but it's what any good technician would do.

Alright. That's what I will do. Thanks for all of your help. I've been trying to figure it out for months and it's nice to finally have some hope. At this point I almost feel like I wasted the 2k that I spent on this pc and it's been very depressing.

 

[vMax]

I am not sure whether this will help (you might already have seen it!) but this thread covered a very similar issue to yours which was eventually solved. Same 8700K stuttering and lagging issues...Read through the whole thread of 2 pages....Fingers crossed.......

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/stuttering-in-games-with-i7-8700k.3216020/page-2?view=date

 

[PlasticQuarters]

I don't think the 2070 would have any issue at all gaming at 1440p.

At this point I still think your best bet is to start isolating out hardware one item at a time until you find whats causing the issue. Test or even better swap out the PSU then move to more in depth troubleshooting.

If the PSU swap doesn't resolve it then I would remove everything from the motherboard except the boot drive, one memory stick, and the GPU...get as minimal as possible and try it...then add in each item one at a time until the issue comes back and you've found the problem. It's a pain to do but it's what any good technician would do.

I am not sure whether this will help (you might already have seen it!) but this thread covered a very similar issue to yours which was eventually solved. Same 8700K stuttering and lagging issues...Read through the whole thread of 2 pages....Fingers crossed.......

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/stuttering-in-games-with-i7-8700k.3216020/page-2?view=date

I solved it. XMP wasn't turned on in my bios so it was as simple as turning it on. Everything is working great now. Crazy to think that it was something so simple the whole time.

 

[vMax]

Well done, we have very nearly the same system and I know how it feels to have a great PC which just is not providing it's best...Now enjoy....

 

[dorsai]

I solved it. XMP wasn't turned on in my bios so it was as simple as turning it on. Everything is working great now. Crazy to think that it was something so simple the whole time.

Glad to hear you resolved the issue...amazing how something so simple can create so much trouble.

 

[PlasticQuarters]

Well done, we have very nearly the same system and I know how it feels to have a great PC which just is not providing it's best...Now enjoy....

Thanks its definitely not fun. I'm just glad that it was worth it in the end and very easy to fix.