Question How do I fix my frame drops/stutters and also improve performance ?

[LEGENDKMS7]

This is my brand new PC
CASE - Lian Li 011 Dynamic Evo XL
CPU COOLING - Lian Li Galahad II LCD 360 AIO
FANS - Lian Li Uni Fan SL120 V2
MOTHERBOARD - ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 FORMULA
GPU - ASUS ROG STRIX 4090 OC BLACK
CPU - Intel Core i9-14900K
POWER SUPPLY - Dark Power Pro 13 1600W
RAM - CORSAIR Dominator Titanium RGB DDR5 RAM 24x4 7200MHz CL36 (Using 6000MHz)
SSD - Crucial T700 4TB Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD x3
OS - Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Monitor - LG 27'' UltraGear OLED Gaming Monitor QHD 240Hz 27GR95QE-B
Mouse - Razer Viper Mini Signature Edition
Keyboard - Wooting 60HE

Every time I game, I get random frame drops and stutters. My PC would drop to 1-5fps and freeze for 1-10 seconds before running normally again. I thought it might be my increased polling, so I lowered it to standard, but I am still experiencing issues. I want to increase my polling rate, but I would rather have a perfectly running PC over polling.

I am running Overwatch, Apex Legends, CS2, Valorant, and COD.

Everything is up to date. I updated my bios and ran stress tests. I ran Cinebench for 2 hours, and The highest temp was 101, the minimum was 36, and the average was 74. My temps look fine, and my resources stay below or around 50%. I tried undervolting, thinking that might help, but it gave me too many issues, so I put everything back to default. Can someone please help me fix this issue? I also want to increase my performance if possible.

 

[helper800]

The funny thing is I ordered the same motherboard twice because I thought the mobo was faulty when the network driver was not functioning correctly, but I learned that I had to inject the driver for it to work. I guess this is a new thing with reinstalling Windows. I built another rig right after with a z690 board and had the same issue with the network driver not showing up. Everything ran fine after installing the network driver, and from what I know from that rig, there were no problems. Back to the current problem, The PCIe socket should be clean. I have an electric air blower, and I used it before installing anything, and as soon as everything is in place for one final dust blow. I wish I could say more, but I don't know what to do. This new rig has given me the most trouble out of all the rigs I built in the past. I mostly learn through trial and error, but this is beyond me. I wish there were another post like this where I could get an instant answer to the problem, but this is giving me a headache.

What do you mean when you say you "have to inject" your network drivers? You most certainly do no have to do so. When you do a clean install of windows via USB made from the media creation tool all you have to do is get the drivers for your motherboard from another computer. Considering you had a 14 second interruption caused by your network driver hanging, I would highly suspect something is wrong with how you installed your network drivers in the first place.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

What do you mean when you say you "have to inject" your network drivers? You most certainly do no have to do so. When you do a clean install of windows via USB made from the media creation tool all you have to do is get the drivers for your motherboard from another computer. Considering you had a 14 second interruption caused by your network driver hanging, I would highly suspect something is wrong with how you installed your network drivers in the first place.

I may be saying it wrong. Please correct me and explain. I did force it on the drive since Windows did not want to install it after the installation. Hence, the reason for the word inject. I'll say upload/install. If you're going to state that I am incorrect, please state the proper method. The media creation tool did not install the network driver. So yes, I had to download the driver from another PC and install it during the format phase. Regardless, I explained how I did this. I probably used the term wrong, but installing the driver before the Windows installation is the same. Please clarify if there are more ways to establish a network driver or the best way to install a network driver for all of us. Please explain how else I was supposed to install the network driver. I was not able to do it after the Windows installation. I am here to learn.
I downloaded the latest media creation tool from Microsoft multiple times(To check if the media creation tool was the issue). From what I learned/experienced, reinstalling Windows is not always the solution. I stated I reinstalled Windows multiple times, and the same issue occurred on numerous motherboards with the network driver missing. The drivers I installed or how I installed them shouldn't be the issue. I never had this issue before until I built the new rigs. I believe you're assuming way too much. The only thing I can think of that will be slightly different from just installing the network driver is to install/update all the drivers during the setup, but that shouldn't be the issue if I am going to install/update them afterward. What do I know? I face new problems daily and want to learn how to deal with them. I will always welcome everyone's input.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

Current Latencymon test -

"Conclusion: Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."

https://imgur.com/a/FDmDJZR

Network update -

I followed this video earlier (

View: https://youtu.be/Xreg9bLbOdw?si=fnVh4zbx9r1gjCAz
). I followed most of it, but turning off the UDP checksum was unnecessary, so I kept that on. I got an A on the buffer bloat test. It looks like my network is performing better. I am not sure if my network is still an issue. Please let me know if there are more ways to improve on it.


Audio Update -

I kept getting a lot of pops, but lowering the sample from 32-bit 48k to 32-bit 44k made it appear less frequently, but it was still noticeable. I wanted to keep it at 48k, and it surprised me that reducing it almost fixed the issue. Latencymon still shows it as a problem, which it is. I am not sure how to fix this and keep the same sample. Not sure how to fix/improve buffer underruns. Suppose anyone can please help with this?



Power Management -

Not sure what to do here.



CPU Throttling Update -

My CPU shouldn't be overclocking after turning off MCE. Not sure how to fix this. Do I need to enable/disable something else?

I just played overwatch, and at first, my fps was a consistent 240. After a couple of games, my fps is stuck below 100. At least it isn't dropping to 5fps and freezing like before, but I should be getting consistent 240. Not sure what to do.

 

[RolandOlifant]

It could be the mobo, but pretty rare; temps as others said is the usual culprit; do you have another GPU you can try?

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

It could be the mobo, but pretty rare; temps as others said is the usual culprit; do you have another GPU you can try?

I don't have another GPU to test. How can I control those temps? I don't believe it is the GPU. Well, I hope it is not the GPU. I never overclock my PC unless my PC is doing it automatically. I want everything to be stabilized and work properly. Is there another way I can test each component in my build? Maybe the PSU is not giving the required power, or the AIO is not cooling correctly. Im just stuck and guessing at this point.

Edit - I believe it might be the cooler. How do I check if that is the problem? I also want to check these parts in this order, and this order is what I believe might be the problem.
AIO
PSU
GPU
Mobo
SSD
Ram

 

[helper800]

I may be saying it wrong. Please correct me and explain. I did force it on the drive since Windows did not want to install it after the installation. Hence, the reason for the word inject. I'll say upload/install. If you're going to state that I am incorrect, please state the proper method. The media creation tool did not install the network driver. So yes, I had to download the driver from another PC and install it during the format phase. Regardless, I explained how I did this. I probably used the term wrong, but installing the driver before the Windows installation is the same. Please clarify if there are more ways to establish a network driver or the best way to install a network driver for all of us. Please explain how else I was supposed to install the network driver. I was not able to do it after the Windows installation. I am here to learn.
I downloaded the latest media creation tool from Microsoft multiple times(To check if the media creation tool was the issue). From what I learned/experienced, reinstalling Windows is not always the solution. I stated I reinstalled Windows multiple times, and the same issue occurred on numerous motherboards with the network driver missing. The drivers I installed or how I installed them shouldn't be the issue. I never had this issue before until I built the new rigs. I believe you're assuming way too much. The only thing I can think of that will be slightly different from just installing the network driver is to install/update all the drivers during the setup, but that shouldn't be the issue if I am going to install/update them afterward. What do I know? I face new problems daily and want to learn how to deal with them. I will always welcome everyone's input.

·Highest reported DPC routine execution time (µs): 14200.734233 (ndis.sys - Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), Microsoft Corporation)

I made no assumptions. I was trying to ascertain what you meant when you said you "Injected" the network driver because as you quoted above you had a 14.2 second hang according to latencymon. I do not know specifically how you installed your network driver and you are having 14 second hangs caused by it. A logical inference would be that there is something wrong with the network driver. To properly install the network driver you have to go to the support page for your motherboard and download the network driver. Then put it onto your computer and run the executable process. If that fails to install that driver we can go from there.

I don't have another GPU to test. How can I control those temps? I don't believe it is the GPU. Well, I hope it is not the GPU. I never overclock my PC unless my PC is doing it automatically. I want everything to be stabilized and work properly. Is there another way I can test each component in my build? Maybe the PSU is not giving the required power, or the AIO is not cooling correctly. Im just stuck and guessing at this point.

Edit - I believe it might be the cooler. How do I check if that is the problem? I also want to check these parts in this order, and this order is what I believe might be the problem.
AIO
PSU
GPU
Mobo
SSD
Ram

If a PSU cannot provide enough power then your PC will shutdown, and/or the PSU will fail. Those are the only two outcomes from a PSU that cannot give enough wattage to the PC. The latest post with the screenshots of latencymon seem to show issues related to the Nvidia driver. I would suggest you perform a clean install of the latest Nvidia driver as follows. Download the latest driver for your card to your desktop. Download a program called DDU to your desktop. Boot into safemode without networking. Run DDU to clean your PC of the Nvidia drivers. Restart to normal windows desktop without being connected to the internet and run the Nvidia driver installer for the latest drivers you just downloaded. Restart with internet connect and test. Here is a guide on how to use DDU.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Try reducing sound settings to say 16 bit and disable all sound enhancements. See if that helps at all during gaming. You can also try going into device manager, sound video game controllers. Disable all items listed. Then enable one at a time to see if there is one, or more, devices that are causing a problem while you game.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

I made no assumptions. I was trying to ascertain what you meant when you said you "Injected" the network driver because as you quoted above you had a 14.2 second hang according to latencymon. I do not know specifically how you installed your network driver and you are having 14 second hangs caused by it. A logical inference would be that there is something wrong with the network driver. To properly install the network driver you have to go to the support page for your motherboard and download the network driver. Then put it onto your computer and run the executable process. If that fails to install that driver we can go from there.


If a PSU cannot provide enough power then your PC will shutdown, and/or the PSU will fail. Those are the only two outcomes from a PSU that cannot give enough wattage to the PC. The latest post with the screenshots of latencymon seem to show issues related to the Nvidia driver. I would suggest you perform a clean install of the latest Nvidia driver as follows. Download the latest driver for your card to your desktop. Download a program called DDU to your desktop. Boot into safemode without networking. Run DDU to clean your PC of the Nvidia drivers. Restart to normal windows desktop without being connected to the internet and run the Nvidia driver installer for the latest drivers you just downloaded. Restart with internet connect and test. Here is a guide on how to use DDU.

Reply 1 - That is precisely what I did. There weren't any network drivers/adapters in my first install of Windows, which was weird, so I downloaded network drivers from Asus and tried to install them. When I tried to run the executable, it wouldn't download, which is also weird. I looked it up online and found that I had to install it during the format phase, which I did on the second reinstall.

Reply 2 - I planned on doing that earlier to see if that would help. I got a black screen last night due to nvlddmkm.sys from the minidump, so I knew something with my graphics was messing up. I reinstalled my graphic drivers from Nvidia and wiped any trace of past drivers with DDU in safe mode. I also installed studio drivers instead of the usual game-ready drivers since studio drivers tend to be more stable.

Latest Latencymon -

https://imgur.com/a/z40ngFf

View: https://imgur.com/a/z40ngFf

"Conclusion: Your system seems to be having difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs, clicks or pops due to buffer underruns. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates."

Audio -
How do I improve audio and buffer underruns?

Power Management -
How to improve power management?

CPU Throttling-
Not sure how to fix this. What tests can I run, or what do I change in my bios to fix this?

 

[helper800]

I might go as far as bread boarding the PC at this point and test without your graphics card. Make sure there is a clean install of windows 10/11 put on a game that this issue is happening with and record it so we or others can see. Something I noticed was that kit of RAM that you have is not on the ASUS compatibility support page for your motherboard. On the corsair memory compatibility website they don't even have your motherboard listed to check for compatibility. None of the high end z790 motherboard they did have listed had kits with 24gb or 48gb sticks as compatible with the ASUS boards. I m not confident enough to say this is the issue, but it is something to consider. A way to test this would be to remove the GPU and use the intel iGPU and see if you still get crashes and see what a minidump blames and check latency mon again.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

I might go as far as bread boarding the PC at this point and test without your graphics card. Make sure there is a clean install of windows 10/11 put on a game that this issue is happening with and record it so we or others can see. Something I noticed was that kit of RAM that you have is not on the ASUS compatibility support page for your motherboard. On the corsair memory compatibility website they don't even have your motherboard listed to check for compatibility. None of the high end z790 motherboard they did have listed had kits with 24gb or 48gb sticks as compatible with the ASUS boards. I m not confident enough to say this is the issue, but it is something to consider. A way to test this would be to remove the GPU and use the intel iGPU and see if you still get crashes and see what a minidump blames and check latency mon again.

I am not 100% sure, but I believe it is my AIO. I ordered the Corsair H150i, and I am going to receive it tomorrow. If that doesn't fix my issue, I'll try what you suggested. I'll keep you updated. I also contacted Asus about the RAM compatibility, and they said they would contact me back on the issue in 2 days, but the agent stated it should work and shouldn't give me any problems. I want to hold up wiping my PC as much as I can. I want to try everything else before going down that road. I'll first run a game on just the CPU graphics and see what happens.

 

[Louie Tomlinson]

Have you tried clean uninstalling and reinstalling your graphics drivers?

 

[helper800]

Have you tried clean uninstalling and reinstalling your graphics drivers?

Yes, he did.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

A lot has happened these past two weeks. I'll try to explain as much as possible when I ordered and installed the new AIO. It did not help. I went and bought another motherboard plus RAM.

New parts
Motherboard - Asus Z790 Apex Encore
Ram - G.Skill 8000MT/s(F5-8000J4048F24GX2-TZ5RW)
AIO - Corsair H150i Link
GPU, SSD, & PSU are still the same.

I'll try to explain everything that I've done. I built the new rig two days ago. I launched the W11 media tool. On the format page(Formatted the drives), I installed just the LAN drivers from the Asus Z790 support page and installed W11 afterward. First, I updated the bios, disabled MCE, and changed the dram frequency to 5600. Then, I updated Windows after installing Armoury crate and the rest of the drivers (

https://imgur.com/a/QlPNBEc

View: https://imgur.com/a/QlPNBEc
). I downloaded Discord and The Finals. Then, I installed Latencymon and Hwinfo. I ran latencymon, and it showed me this (

https://imgur.com/a/qeZxzJy

View: https://imgur.com/a/qeZxzJy
). I ran DDU in safe mode after and installed Nvidia Studio driver 546.33. Then, I followed that video with the network optimization but didn't turn off the UDP checksum. Then I reran Latencymon and got this (

https://imgur.com/a/ehjI0rU

View: https://imgur.com/a/ehjI0rU
). I downloaded Icue and L-connect to increase the fan speeds. Then, I launched The finals and HWinfo for the first time. Just being in the main menu increased my CPU temps to 99c. I don't know what I am doing wrong or what to change to fix this. I've had this GPU for a year. It worked fine in my old rig, so that shouldn't be the issue. SSD is brand new and shouldn't malfunction. Same with the PSU. I don't know what to upgrade, what setting in my bios to change, or what drivers to change/install.

 

[drivinfast247]

Too much to read, but did you update chipset drivers?

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

Too much to read, but did you update chipset drivers?

If it is too much to read, then don't comment.

 

[drivinfast247]

A lot has happened these past two weeks. I'll try to explain as much as possible when I ordered and installed the new AIO. It did not help. I went and bought another motherboard plus RAM.

New parts
Motherboard - Asus Z790 Apex Encore
Ram - G.Skill 8000MT/s(F5-8000J4048F24GX2-TZ5RW)
AIO - Corsair H150i Link
GPU, SSD, & PSU are still the same.

I'll try to explain everything that I've done. I built the new rig two days ago. I launched the W11 media tool. On the format page(Formatted the drives), I installed just the LAN drivers from the Asus Z790 support page and installed W11 afterward. First, I updated the bios, disabled MCE, and changed the dram frequency to 5600. Then, I updated Windows after installing Armoury crate and the rest of the drivers. I downloaded Discord and The Finals. Then, I installed Latencymon and Hwinfo. I ran latencymon, and it showed me this (

https://imgur.com/a/qeZxzJy

View: https://imgur.com/a/qeZxzJy
). I ran DDU in safe mode after and installed Nvidia Studio driver 546.33. Then, I followed that video with the network optimization but didn't turn off the UDP checksum. Then I reran Latencymon and got this (

https://imgur.com/a/ehjI0rU

View: https://imgur.com/a/ehjI0rU
). I downloaded Icue and L-connect to increase the fan speeds. Then, I launched The finals and HWinfo for the first time. Just being in the main menu increased my CPU temps to 99c. I don't know what I am doing wrong or what to change to fix this. I've had this GPU for a year. It worked fine in my old rig, so that shouldn't be the issue. SSD is brand new and shouldn't malfunction. Same with the PSU. I don't know what to upgrade, what setting in my bios to change, or what drivers to change/install.

Comment removed. Good luck.

 

[drivinfast247]

If it is too much to read, then don't comment.

Ok good luck

 

[helper800]

Just being in the main menu increased my CPU temps to 99c. I don't know what I am doing wrong or what to change to fix this. I've had this GPU for a year. It worked fine in my old rig, so that shouldn't be the issue. SSD is brand new and shouldn't malfunction. Same with the PSU. I don't know what to upgrade, what setting in my bios to change, or what drivers to change/install.

The first thing that should be addressed is the CPU temps. When your CPU gets to 99c what was running on the PC? What was the load and power usage of the CPU? If the CPU was basically idle, meaning lower power usage (~30w or lower) and low load (~15% usage or lower), there may be something wrong with either the mount of the AIO on the CPU, the plastic film is still on the AIO cold plate, or the AIO is for whatever reason not pumping enough water due to defect or malfunctioning due to some other defect, be it physical or software/firmware.

@Darkbreeze I am having a bit of a hard time with this one, can you provide your two cents?

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

The first thing that should be addressed is the CPU temps. When your CPU gets to 99c what was running on the PC? What was the load and power usage of the CPU? If the CPU was basically idle, meaning lower power usage (~30w or lower) and low load (~15% usage or lower), there may be something wrong with either the mount of the AIO on the CPU, the plastic film is still on the AIO cold plate, or the AIO is for whatever reason not pumping enough water due to defect or malfunctioning due to some other defect, be it physical or software/firmware.

@Darkbreeze I am having a bit of a hard time with this one, can you provide your two cents?

Idle -

https://imgur.com/a/JzThrLU

View: https://imgur.com/a/JzThrLU

Main Menu of The Finals -

https://imgur.com/a/1c2lq1D

View: https://imgur.com/a/1c2lq1D

Launching a match -

https://imgur.com/a/jMrKTUh

View: https://imgur.com/a/jMrKTUh

 

[helper800]

Idle -

https://imgur.com/a/JzThrLU

View: https://imgur.com/a/JzThrLU

Main Menu of The Finals -

https://imgur.com/a/1c2lq1D

View: https://imgur.com/a/1c2lq1D

Launching a match -

https://imgur.com/a/jMrKTUh

View: https://imgur.com/a/jMrKTUh

It seems to me that you could at least benefit from better cooling. When was the last time you mounted that AIO onto the CPU? Could be a bad mount since your CPU seems to be sitting around 4.8-9ghz you seems to be having some thermal issues under load. It is not clear to me whether this is the limit of the cooler or that there may be something wrong with the installation of the AIO block on the CPU or something with the pump. You could try limiting the boosting behavior of the CPU in BIOS for diagnostic purposes.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

It seems to me that you could at least benefit from better cooling. When was the last time you mounted that AIO onto the CPU? Could be a bad mount since your CPU seems to be sitting around 4.8-9ghz you seems to be having some thermal issues under load. It is not clear to me whether this is the limit of the cooler or that there may be something wrong with the installation of the AIO block on the CPU or something with the pump. You could try limiting the boosting behavior of the CPU in BIOS for diagnostic purposes.

A couple of days ago, when I built the rig. I believe I mounted it correctly. I don't mind reapplying the thermal paste and remounting the AIO. How should I limit boosting?

Edit - I also installed Thermal Grizzly Intel Contact Frame. I made sure the screws were not screwed in too tight, just enough that it was screwed in. The AIO came with prepaste, of course, and I know it covered every corner of the CPU.

 

[helper800]

A couple of days ago, when I built the rig. I believe I mounted it correctly. I don't mind reapplying the thermal paste and remounting the AIO. How should I limit boosting?

Edit - I also installed Thermal Grizzly Intel Contact Frame. I made sure the screws were not screwed in too tight, just enough that it was screwed in. The AIO came with prepaste, of course, and I know it covered every corner of the CPU.

Uneven mount pressure is what I was thinking. You can use the Intel XTU program to limit the power the CPU used to 125 watts, which is the base power of the CPU.

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

Status Update - What I have done so far. I did not reseat AIO. I did use XTU and lowered it. The core voltage offset and system agent voltage offset are -0.030v. I set the turbo boost max power to 125w and system agent voltage to 1.250v. After that, my CPU did not overheat and stayed around 70-85c when playing the finals (It still looks high). I am questioning that I get around 150-200 frames (Video settings are all set to Low), but I used to get 240 consistently, but that is with the auto OC/high temps(Not sure if I can change that). Audio-wise, I want to turn off audio enhancements permanently. It auto-enables itself whenever I try to turn it off. Suppose someone can tell me how to do it through the registry; that would help my audio pops. I ran latencymon, and it still gets the same conclusion with CPU throttling and audio issues (

https://imgur.com/a/SQei4HA

View: https://imgur.com/a/SQei4HA
). My next steps are to go into my bios, disable Intel SpeedStep, and maybe change Intel Adaptive Boost Technology. Intel Dynamic Tuning is auto-disabled, and I'm unsure if I should enable it(all past boards had it enabled automatically, but the apex encore is disabled) (

https://imgur.com/a/FL9cgwo

View: https://imgur.com/a/FL9cgwo
)
now -

https://imgur.com/a/oULyNC0

View: https://imgur.com/a/oULyNC0

 

[LEGENDKMS7]

Uneven mount pressure is what I was thinking. You can use the Intel XTU program to limit the power the CPU used to 125 watts, which is the base power of the CPU.

Not sure what else to do. If you know what else I should do, please let me know.

 

[jnxzi94]

Hello,

You may wanna check my recent troubleshoot (the last message):
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/i9-13900k-clock-speed.3831280

That's how I fixed my system struggling with same kind of issues.
And of course, make sure your drivers and BIOS/UEFI is up to date.
Check this too on WIN11 'Optimizations for windowed games' >> disabled.

By the way, insane build, you should be doing great with that.. 😀