[SOLVED] Massive stutters in CPU heavy games

[JsyJezzy]

So last year i bought an i7 7700k.
in recent months ive been experiencing huge stutters while playing CPU heavy games, started out in Battlefield V. and has been happening now in Hunt Showdown.
Also happens in less intensive games if i am streaming at the same time.

Cannot find anything similar online.
The game will run absolutely flawlessly for the first hour that im on, and then the stutters start to occur every 60 seconds or so.
Temps sit around 70-85 at full load

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adJybDd48zM
please watch the video to get an idea.

If anyone has seen something similar or knows whats happening i would really appreciate some help
i7 7700k Non OC
Corsair H60
GTX 1080
16gb Ram
Evo 850 SSD


Thanks

 

[RememberThe5th]

From what I know, my friend from Germany had same issues, he did everything from point A to point Z in hardware tweaks to the software tweaks, and it did not help.
The only thing what helped him is that he upgraded the CPU&Motherboard and also he had the 7th gen CPU (Not sure if 6th or 7th) and went to ryzen.

I would say buggy CPU or the Intel spectre fix/Meltdown is doing that.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you are sustaining loads that are taking your CPU to 85°C, then it is at least possible you are overheating the VRMs and experiencing VRM throttling, especially if you have a lower end board.

Hard to say since you don't list the board model. The H60 isn't a particularly capable cooler to begin with, and those temps indicate a problem. Without an overclock you should never see temps above maybe 75°C, MAX, while gaming. I'd double check the seating on the water block and revisit the fan curve for the radiator as well. One problem with lower end board models is that when you go to an AIO cooler you completely eliminate the residual airflow over the VRMs that an air cooler provides, so without extremely good case cooling (And sometimes even then, especially when overclocking) you can see some VRM throttling during extended periods of high load usage.

How many case fans do you have? What is your case model? Where is each fan located? What is the orientation of EACH fan, intake or exhaust?

What is your EXACT PSU model or series?

 

[Darkbreeze]

From what I know, my friend from Germany had same issues, he did everything from point A to point Z in hardware tweaks to the software tweaks, and it did not help.
The only thing what helped him is that he upgraded the CPU&Motherboard and also he had the 7th gen CPU (Not sure if 6th or 7th) and went to ryzen.

I would say buggy CPU or the Intel spectre fix/Meltdown is doing that.

It would be consistent if that were the case. It wouldn't work fine for an hour and then suddenly start doing it. This is almost certainly a thermal condition that happens after the system has been under a load for a long time, or possibly a PSU problem for the same reason.

 

[JsyJezzy]

If you are sustaining loads that are taking your CPU to 85°C, then it is at least possible you are overheating the VRMs and experiencing VRM throttling, especially if you have a lower end board.

Hard to say since you don't list the board model. The H60 isn't a particularly capable cooler to begin with, and those temps indicate a problem. Without an overclock you should never see temps above maybe 75°C, MAX, while gaming. I'd double check the seating on the water block and revisit the fan curve for the radiator as well. One problem with lower end board models is that when you go to an AIO cooler you completely eliminate the residual airflow over the VRMs that an air cooler provides, so without extremely good case cooling (And sometimes even then, especially when overclocking) you can see some VRM throttling during extended periods of high load usage.

How many case fans do you have? What is your case model? Where is each fan located? What is the orientation of EACH fan, intake or exhaust?

What is your EXACT PSU model or series?

Thankyou for such a fast reply, from what your saying it is most likely my case Cooling that could be much better. Ill invest in a new Mobo too just to be safe.
Hopefully that fixes the issue. such a nasty stutter to deal with!

 

[JsyJezzy]

It would be consistent if that were the case. It wouldn't work fine for an hour and then suddenly start doing it. This is almost certainly a thermal condition that happens after the system has been under a load for a long time, or possibly a PSU problem for the same reason.

So after taking your answer into consideration i Re arranged my cooler to the front panel of my PC and have been getting nice 55-65 degrees while gaming.

But the stuttering is still there!! only ever while playing CPU intensive games like Hunt/BFV or while streaming.
always after about an hour of silky smooth gameplay.

What could be the problem

 

[Darkbreeze]

Something is still getting hot. Could be the graphics card, power supply, motherboard. Could be a weak capacitor somewhere that works fine for a while and then starts getting flaky after an extended period.

If it works perfectly fine for an hour or so, and then starts going wonky, it has to be hardware. Software would be inclined to act the same all the time normally.

What is your exact power supply model?

Have you tried monitoring the motherboard VRM or graphics card thermals?

 

[JsyJezzy]

okay, have just been playing for an hour. didnt get any stutters there but my motherboard temps were as follows:
TMPIN0 - MIN 40 - MAX 51
TMPIN1 - MIN - 46 - MAX 61
TMPIN2 - MIN 31 - MAX 69.

All other temps were sweet, but i have no idea on average mobo temps etc. are they too high?
Gigabyte h110m-S2h.

Thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

No, those look ok to me.

What is the exact model of your power supply? There should be a specifications decal on one of the sides of the unit, usually the one facing out, that lists the electrical specifications and the model of the unit.

 

[boju]

Could be memory - ssd - pagefile related.

Is all 16GB usable, none in reserve?
How much space is left on the ssd? Even with 16GB ram, pagefile in games can still grow to decent size.
Have you configured size or relocated pagefile?

 

[Darkbreeze]

You would think those would present themselves as issues much sooner than an hour though if one of them was the problem.

 

[boju]

Yeah possibly. Decreasing pf size or moving it to a slower drive would see a change in performance soon enough.

Maybe all 16GB is functional and pagefile could be increasing at a slower rate and possibly surpassing ssd's recommended free space (10GB ~20GB is it?) before ssds start to slow down. Could be enough to cause those stutters.

The chug in the video looks like something is taking it's time processing data. Throttling as said, driver corruption, or memory/pf. Could be infected with bit mining malware too who knows.

 

[JsyJezzy]

No, those look ok to me.

What is the exact model of your power supply? There should be a specifications decal on one of the sides of the unit, usually the one facing out, that lists the electrical specifications and the model of the unit.

PSU is an OCZ ZS Series 650W. model no: OCZ-ZS650W-EU

In reply to Boju, i have 6144mb allocated in the paging file. With 20gb free on my SSD

 

[mdd1963]

From what I know, my friend from Germany had same issues, he did everything from point A to point Z in hardware tweaks to the software tweaks, and it did not help.
The only thing what helped him is that he upgraded the CPU&Motherboard and also he had the 7th gen CPU (Not sure if 6th or 7th) and went to ryzen.

I would say buggy CPU or the Intel spectre fix/Meltdown is doing that.

Short of heavy simultaneous streaming workloads(which can indeed overload the 4c/8t CPUs), none of the Ryzens are yet matching the 7700K in pure gaming scenarios like BF1 or BF5...; none of the patches to WIndows have yet induced the 7700K to being falling behind in gaming scenarios yet, so, an 'upgrade' to Ryzen would be a frame rate decrease. (Hardly worthy of the term 'upgrade' when frame rates are decreased in min/avg, max, and 1% lows, at least in my book)

There was a reference to page file settings/manipulations...which is a bad move.

Folks should not be dorking with page file allocations...period. Thismight be what is inducing the swaps, messing with RAM allocation (or core parking, etc) instead of allowing WIndows to manage it on it's own. (This is not Window NT 4.0)

Nuke and pave, fresh install of everything and confine unnecessary tinkering/mouse clicking to areas where it ought to occur.

If temps are hitting 85C as indicated, it is probably safe to say some overclocking is occurring (?) based on my own 7700K temps which are only 70C while gaming at 4.7 GHz/ all-core. (Set clocks to default or at least all-core MCE turbo of 4.5-4.6 GHz to eliminate the possibility of VRM/wattage throttling, then see if any thorttle symptoms occur.)

 

[JsyJezzy]

Short of heavy simultaneous streaming workloads(which can indeed overload the 4c/8t CPUs), none of the Ryzens are yet matching the 7700K in pure gaming scenarios like BF1 or BF5...; none of the patches to WIndows have yet induced the 7700K to being falling behind in gaming scenarios yet, so, an 'upgrade' to Ryzen would be a frame rate decrease. (Hardly worthy of the term 'upgrade' when frame rates are decreased in min/avg, max, and 1% lows, at least in my book)

There was a reference to page file settings/manipulations...which is a bad move.

Folks should not be dorking with page file allocations...period. Thismight be what is inducing the swaps, messing with RAM allocation (or core parking, etc) instead of allowing WIndows to manage it on it's own. (This is not Window NT 4.0)

Nuke and pave, fresh install of everything and confine unnecessary tinkering/mouse clicking to areas where it ought to occur.

If temps are hitting 85C as indicated, it is probably safe to say some overclocking is occurring (?) based on my own 7700K temps which are only 70C while gaming at 4.7 GHz/ all-core. (Set clocks to default or at least all-core MCE turbo of 4.5-4.6 GHz to eliminate the possibility of VRM/wattage throttling, then see if any thorttle symptoms occur.)

Temps were down to a bad case and bad fan placement. ive managed to pull my temps down to 60-70 degrees. but i still get the stutter after an hour of a CPU heavy game. or While streaming. this is never an immediate problem, always after an hour ish

 

[boju]

PSU is an OCZ ZS Series 650W. model no: OCZ-ZS650W-EU

In reply to Boju, i have 6144mb allocated in the paging file. With 20gb free on my SSD

Is 6144mb allocated before or an hr into gaming?

Might not have anything to do with pagefile and or ssd space left. Id like a second opinion if 20GB left would be ok with the paging file possibly eating into it further.

Would it be possible to uninstall a game to free up some space to find out?

 

[JsyJezzy]

Is 6144mb allocated before or an hr into gaming?

Might not have anything to do with pagefile and or ssd space left. Id like a second opinion if 20GB left would be ok with the paging file possibly eating into it further.

Would it be possible to uninstall a game to free up some space to find out?

Its only as of recently the SSD has been at this capacity. ive had the problem for months now even with a half empty SSD

 

[boju]

Fair enough then

 

[CosmicDance]

Have you tried downloading and running the free 'Empty Standby List Cleaner program?
I found it really help to smooth BF V out with the CPU stutters that this game causes.

It's the only game that I need to use Standby List to smooth out.
Every other game I play is smooth on my rig apart from BF V which is notoriously badly optimised at the moment.
Many people are having issues with BF V and performance on all platforms.

Andy

 

[geofelt]

Normally, over time a slowdown is caused by thermal issues and throttling.
That seems to be under control here.

The Samsung 850 EVO is an excellent ssd but it has it's limits.
With 20gb free space available, I suspect that you are having a hard time doing updates to it.
If updates come too fast, say game checkpoints or page file hard faults, the ssd needs to find a empty nand block to do the update.
Normally, this is not a problem.
The ssd has been busy in the background freeing up blocks.
But, in your case, I think it is getting overwhelmed.
I do not know your capacity, but I suspect you will do better with a larger ssd.

with 16gb, I doubt you are short of ram.

You might also scan for malware.
Malware bytes free edition would be a start.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'd also make sure I have the latest firmware installed for that 850 EVO. Early firmware had some issues on those and the 840 drives. Worse on the 840 but there were some performance issues on the 850 early on as well.

 

[JsyJezzy]

thanks for all your replies everyone. i think the game is actually running off my HDD.
ill keep trying all of your advice and hopefully come to a solution. worst case ill reinstall windows. only use it for Gaming so no big issue for me

 

[Darkbreeze]

If it's running off your HDD, THAT could be the whole problem.

That drive could be getting hot after a while and then starts getting lazy or wonky once it does. Drive could be dying.

Try moving the game folder to your SSD and see if the problem disappears. If it does, then I guess you'll know what they deal is.

You can also run a drive health utility to see if that drive has issues. Crystaldiskmark is good for an extensive SMART and health test. Seatools for Windows or WD Lifeguard tools are good for running the short DST/quick test or the Long generic/Extended tests. I'd do all three. SMART with Crystaldiskmark, and both the other tests on one of those two utilities.

 

[JsyJezzy]

If it's running off your HDD, THAT could be the whole problem.

That drive could be getting hot after a while and then starts getting lazy or wonky once it does. Drive could be dying.

Try moving the game folder to your SSD and see if the problem disappears. If it does, then I guess you'll know what they deal is.

You can also run a drive health utility to see if that drive has issues. Crystaldiskmark is good for an extensive SMART and health test. Seatools for Windows or WD Lifeguard tools are good for running the short DST/quick test or the Long generic/Extended tests. I'd do all three. SMART with Crystaldiskmark, and both the other tests on one of those two utilities.

but why would this only apply on CPU heavy games, or while streaming? i will try those tests regardless, thanks

 

[geofelt]

Stuttering is usually caused by a momentary shortage of cpu resources.

I note that you have a K suffix processor which can be overclocked.
Unfortunately, a H110 motherboard will not allow overclocking.
If you replace the H110 motherboard with a Z170 or Z270 based motherboard, you will be able to overclock.
How high will be determined by your luck in having a good chip.

As of 6/9/17
What percent can get an overclock at a somewhat sane 1.4v Vcore.

I7-7700K
4.9 83%
5.0 62%
5.1 29%
5.2 6%

You will also need a better than stock cooler.
What is your case?
It should have 160mm available.

Normally, 8gb is plenty for just gaming.
But, when you are multitasking and streaming, you want the 16gb you have.
Since there is competition for ram, you may occasionally have a hard fault.
That is when the game needs to access a page that has not been used for a while and is not resident in ram.
Windows must fetch that page from your page file.
During the wait time, your game is stopped dead.
Not so bad with a ssd which you have.
But, if windows needs to write out a page to make room, your ssd with little free space might take much longer than normal.

Regardless, I think an upgrade to a larger ssd is a good idea if you can handle it.
240gb at least, but a 500gb Samsung 860 evo will be $78
https://www.newegg.com/samsung-860-evo-series-500gb/p/N82E16820147674
Samsung has a nice C drive mover app that would make the transition a trivial process.
Repurpose your old ssd for more gaming storage or possibly a cache for your HDD.