[SOLVED] i7 7700k Stuttering. cant fix!!

[JsyJezzy]

So im having real problem with my setup at the moment. (see below for basic specs)
Whenever im playing a game that is putting my CPU under load, or streaming a less intensive game, i get huge stutters that render the game unplayable in my opinion.

View: https://clips.twitch.tv/CutePreciousPterodactylCmonBruh


Here is a clip from my stream as an example.
My cpu and GPU temperatures are between 60-75 while gaming
every time my cpu usage gets above 80% i get these huge drops.

Ive tried everything from re installing my CPU/GPU
Fresh intalled Windows today.
Spoke to intel and they run me through the diagnosis process. apparently my cpu is healthy with no problems.
going to try and speak to them on monday when the support desk is open again and try to claim on warranty.

Can anyone here think of anything else i could try/ have you seen anything like this before!
Thanks

i7 7700k
GTX 1080
16gb Ram
250gb SSD

 

[jostegogar]

is that ram running on dual channel? are u overclocking your cpu and how much?

 

[JsyJezzy]

is that ram running on dual channel? are u overclocking your cpu and how much?

Yes Ram is dual channel. and no nothing is overclocked.

 

[jostegogar]

Yes Ram is dual channel. and no nothing is overclocked.

well maybe u should start some overclocking. depending on ur mobo u should easily get 4.8GHz. that will also drop the cpu usage but the cpu also gets very hot so better have decent cooler.

 

[JsyJezzy]

well maybe u should start some overclocking. depending on ur mobo u should easily get 4.8GHz. that will also drop the cpu usage but the cpu also gets very hot so better have decent cooler.

That doesnt really solve my issue though. the CPU should easily run these games without any hiccups.
And these stutters are fairly severe im sure you would agree

 

[drewski989]

I agree, you should have no problem gaming on stock settings given your setup.

Has this setup run smoothly in the past?

Whenever I get stutters like this out of nowhere, I immediately ask myself what changed. Usually, it is a junk NVIDIA driver update and I have to roll back. Other than that, you can check for background processes that are eating into cycles and bogging down the CPU. Have you recently made other changes? Power plan for Windows, NVIDIA CP Power Settings (prefer optimal performance) are other things to try.

I have recently started to set the Windows process priority to high (Task Manager - Details - Right Click - Set Priority) for the game I am playing. Not sure it helps, but I do see other processes from time to time running at high priority and thus stealing from my game.

Any process can steal from your game if you let it. First guess is a bad driver update, second is another process stealing cycles.

 

[JsyJezzy]

I agree, you should have no problem gaming on stock settings given your setup.

Has this setup run smoothly in the past?

Whenever I get stutters like this out of nowhere, I immediately ask myself what changed. Usually, it is a junk NVIDIA driver update and I have to roll back. Other than that, you can check for background processes that are eating into cycles and bogging down the CPU. Have you recently made other changes? Power plan for Windows, NVIDIA CP Power Settings (prefer optimal performance) are other things to try.

I have recently started to set the Windows process priority to high (Task Manager - Details - Right Click - Set Priority) for the game I am playing. Not sure it helps, but I do see other processes from time to time running at high priority and thus stealing from my game.

Any process can steal from your game if you let it. First guess is a bad driver update, second is another process stealing cycles.

Thanks for your reply,
Yes ive tried your steps but to no avail.
The problem started around 4 months ago, i was playing battlefield V and started streaming it, thats when i first noticed.
now it just seems that whenever i go above 80% usage it stutters severely.
whether i start a stream or turn up settings that affect the CPU.

i know there are many work arounds such as capping my framerate or streaming from a seperate PC etc.
but i feel like i really shouldnt have to do such things when ive worked so hard to have the PC i have today.

Hence why i will be starting the warranty process with intel on monday.
was just hoping in a last ditch effort someone has had the exact same issue and knows a magical fix xD

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

If you are streaming, that's probably why. I7 7700k is only 4 cores 8 threads, so if you are steaming, there will definitely be frame drop. Battlefield V also tends to use more cores rather than less, so that doesn't help your case. If you play and stream battlefield V maybe considering upgrading your CPU to one with more cores.

Also, as mentioned above, over clocking should help, at least a small amount.

 

[JsyJezzy]

If you are streaming, that's probably why. I7 7700k is only 4 cores 8 threads, so if you are steaming, there will definitely be frame drop. Battlefield V also tends to use more cores rather than less, so that doesn't help your case. If you play and stream battlefield V maybe considering upgrading your CPU to one with more cores.

Also, as mentioned above, over clocking should help, at least a small amount.

but the problem occurs whether im streaming or not. if im playing a game which uses over 80% without streaming it still stutters.
For example Mordhau, this will stutter if i have settings on high. when this cpu is more than capable of running it.

The issue here is that the cpu is locking up my games over 80% usage, when it very much shouldnt!

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

but the problem occurs whether im streaming or not. if im playing a game which uses over 80% without streaming it still stutters.
For example Mordhau, this will stutter if i have settings on high. when this cpu is more than capable of running it.

The issue here is that the cpu is locking up my games over 80% usage, when it very much shouldnt!

I see, my bad, I thought you meant that it happened when you streamed and played and the same time.

 

[boju]

BF5 is kinda the wrong game to compare performance with as this game is really cpu heavy especially with frame pre-rendering + multiplayer. Have you tried future frame rendering or whatever it's called in BF5?

Regarding mordhau im having a guess here, your issues may not be hardware and rather software/driver conflict. Ie; discord or bluetooth headset or mic dongle / driver. Try search for game specific issues like some of the suggestions said here;

Stuttering and Freezing Issues

Mordhau is a multiplayer medieval melee game with a strong emphasis on skill-based combat.

mordhau.com

What devices do you have/use?

 

[JsyJezzy]

BF5 is kinda the wrong game to compare performance with as this game is really cpu heavy especially with frame pre-rendering + multiplayer. Have you tried future frame rendering or whatever it's called in BF5?

Regarding mordhau im having a guess here, your issues may not be hardware and rather software/driver conflict. Ie; discord or bluetooth headset or mic dongle / driver. Try search for game specific issues like some of the suggestions said here;

Stuttering and Freezing Issues

Mordhau is a multiplayer medieval melee game with a strong emphasis on skill-based combat.

mordhau.com

What devices do you have/use?

but like i said in my original post, this problem is occuring in almost every game if im streaming. and if im not streaming it still occurs when i am not streaming.

it wouldnt be individual game issues if im getting the exact same stutter under the same conditions over several games, surely not

 

[boju]

but like i said in my original post, this problem is occuring in almost every game if im streaming. and if im not streaming it still occurs when i am not streaming.

it wouldnt be individual game issues if im getting the exact same stutter under the same conditions over several games, surely not

Perhaps try winaero to temporarily disable services and see if anything becomes obvious.

Another possibility is it could be the ssd.

 

[JsyJezzy]

Perhaps try winaero to temporarily disable services and see if anything becomes obvious.

Another possibility is it could be the ssd.

why would it be the SSD, the problem only ever occurs at high cpu loads, never at any other time. and i fresh intalled windows yesterday clean wiping my harddrives

 

[boju]

High cpu usage, high memory usage and high pagefile usage. Could be the ssd, pagefile is used all the time.

 

[JsyJezzy]

Okay well i have just pretty much confirmed its my cpu which is the problem.

I have just put in my girlfriends cpu, an i5 7400

played under the exact same conditions on the same game, and while the cpu performs worse due to being a much more inferior processor.
The stutters i was recieving were gone, was completely fine regardless of being pushed to 100% usage consistently on Mordhau.

i am just hoping intel will accept this and allow me to have a refund/replacement with my warranty

 

[boju]

Hmm odd, so some questions

How long have you had the 7700k and when did the problem start. Was it always a problem? Did you recently buy it?

Have you updated the motherboard's bios?

What motherboard is it?

Did you try disable Hyperthreading?

When testing for cpu load % did you monitor cpu frequency simultaneously?

 

[drewski989]

Sounds like you are doing all the right things to troubleshoot it. Two of the main tricks to effective troubleshooting are eliminating variables and not changing more than one variable between tests (if you can help it). I get on my soapbox at work about this all the time.

The cpu switch is very interesting. If you can get Intel to RMA the cpu, it will be sweet validation or back to the drawingboard (with one big variable removed). I guess I would still be surprised to hear it was a defect in the CPU.

I was thinking along the lines of boju above. Are there tests you have run that show CPU/GPU numbers over time? HWinfo64 has an entire section that shows if certain conditions have triggered, thermal throttling, for example. Maybe this gets you closer to a definitive answer or helps with Intel RMA.

 

[JsyJezzy]

Hmm odd, so some questions

How long have you had the 7700k and when did the problem start. Was it always a problem? Did you recently buy it?

Have you updated the motherboard's bios?

What motherboard is it?

Did you try disable Hyperthreading?

When testing for cpu load % did you monitor cpu frequency simultaneously?

- Bought last year, problem started to occur around the new year.

-Yes bios was updated to the F25 update

-Gigabyte H110m-S2H-CF

-Yes ive tried

-The frequency is always fine, stable throughout at 4.37 ghz

 

[boju]

The cpu appears to check out in terms of numbers so there probably is underlying issues within.

Hope rma'ing pans out for you. Good luck.

 

[JsyJezzy]

Sounds like you are doing all the right things to troubleshoot it. Two of the main tricks to effective troubleshooting are eliminating variables and not changing more than one variable between tests (if you can help it). I get on my soapbox at work about this all the time.

The cpu switch is very interesting. If you can get Intel to RMA the cpu, it will be sweet validation or back to the drawingboard (with one big variable removed). I guess I would still be surprised to hear it was a defect in the CPU.

I was thinking along the lines of boju above. Are there tests you have run that show CPU/GPU numbers over time? HWinfo64 has an entire section that shows if certain conditions have triggered, thermal throttling, for example. Maybe this gets you closer to a definitive answer or helps with Intel RMA.

Im hoping they will RMA it to atleast either solve the issue, or put my efforts elsewhere.
I have used HWinfo while triggering the issue but if im honest im not too sure what im looking for. i just see the frequency drop to 800Mhz during the spikes, then shoots back up to 4.4ghz

 

[boju]

i just see the frequency drop to 800Mhz during the spikes, then shoots back up to 4.4ghz

I just asked you this question and you said it's always fine...

 

[boju]

Dropping speed to 800mhz is either cpu temp related or motherboard's vrms can't handle an 7700k properly anymore.

 

[JsyJezzy]

Dropping speed to 800mhz is either cpu temp related or motherboard's vrms can't handle an 7700k properly anymore.

right okay thankyou, i thought you meant other than the spikes. i mean wouldnt it drop to 800 mhz purely because the frames have dropped to almost 1, meaning that during these times ther cpus resources arent being used

 

[boju]

Its ok

Cpu pre-renders frames for the gpu so the cpu needs to do a lot of things not just prepare frames but lot of game code and whichever else, it'll never idle. When cpu speeds drop drastically like that does indicate either heat or motherboard throttling the cpu.

See this to understand what i mean about the connection between cpu, frames and gpu. He explains it well.