Question Mystery Stuttering On High End PC. No resolution after 1 year of troubleshooting.

[Dillonr93]

Hello all, I am returning again after prematurely marking my last post as solved. I thought my issue was resolved, but it had only improved slightly but never went away. A little over a year ago I build a high end gaming and workstation pc. Ever since it was built, it has been stuttering both in games and on the desktop. Sometimes even in the bios. The stuttering goes as follows: When in the desktop, while moving windows around, they will sometimes stop in place for a split second before continuing about. In productivity apps its like it freeze frames for a second when I'm trying to use them. When browsing the web the stutter tends to happen while scrolling, briefly stopping the scroll. Every single game I play is affected by the stuttering in some way, even games that are very easy to run. For example, in Cities Skylines, the game will hang for a split second while moving the camera about. The audio cuts out as well when this happens. Same thing in Civilization 6, it just hangs for a second periodically when moving the camera around. Games like overwatch 2 run pretty well but instead of having the typical stuttering, it will completely freeze frame for a few seconds and the screen will cut to black before things return to normal. The stuttering happens consistently every few minutes no matter what I'm doing. I have tried every solution that I could possibly think of and then some. Nothing and I mean absolutely nothing that I have tried has solved this problem, and I have been troubleshooting as often as I can over the course of a year now.

Here are my specs:
OS: Windows 11
Mobo: Asus prime Z690 A
CPU: Intel i9 12900kf
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000mhz
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090Ti
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1000W
Storage: 3 Samsung EVO 980 pros. Two 1TB drives and one 2TB drive.
Asus Thunderbolt 3 Card
Cooling: Noctua air cooler
Monitors: 2 Sceptre 1440P 165hz Freesync
Mouse: Razer Naga
Keyboard: Logitech G910
Headset: Also Logitech but unsure of model.

Here is everything I have tried, in order, as far as I can remember. Get ready, this is a lot.

First attempt of fixing this, I upgraded my PSU from an 850W to my current 1000W. My thought was that I was pushing that PSU to its limit. No change in stuttering.

Next I tried messing with XMP settings, but they just wouldn't work. In my previous post, many people stated this could be a RAM issue or possibly a CPU issue and I was told to update my BIOS.

I updated BIOS and this helped the issue only a little bit. I was now able to properly use XMP profiles. I spent a long time here messing with various XMP profiles and settings and nothing helped at all.

Next I tried messing with various power settings in the BIOS. I tried everything from turning off C states to disabling SpeedStep and SpeedShift. I turned off turbo mode, I even tried underclocking my CPU. Nothing helped.

Disabled E cores. Made issue much worse.

I have messed with every windows setting imaginable to try to fix this. Tried different power plans. disabled all unnecessary startup tasks. Deleted all unnecessary apps. I turned off literally every setting that could be needlessly taking up resources. I even started to mess with REGEDIT to disable all kinds of features that could possibly be deemed problematic, such as MPO.

Messed with all sorts of settings in Nvidia Control Panel. Nothing helped.

Ran all kinds of diagnostic and benchmark tools for every piece of hardware. No problems detected on any of them.

Tried uninstalling/ reinstalling pretty much every driver I could and tested various configurations like this. No fix

I even uninstalled graphics drivers with DDU and that didn't help

At this point I have exhausted most of the software troubleshooting options and I began troubleshooting the hardware side.

I tried all the different possible ram configurations. No fixes there.

I bought a new RAM kit and installed it. Stuttering Persisted. Returned RAM

I bought an ASUS Z790 A to test. Problem persisted. Returned new MOBO

I swapped my GPU with my old 1080ti and still same issue.

Borrowed my brothers i912900k and put it into my PC. unbelievably, stuttering was still there!

Next I started testing my m.2 SSDs. I tried every configuration possible with these, from just 1 drive to all 3, with a fresh install of windows for each configuration. Still the problem persists. It did not matter which SSD was the boot drive.

I removed the thunderbolt card and tested pc without that part. Still stuttering.

I booted the PC without any nonessential peripherals. no fix.

I booted PC with all nonessential internal components such as fans and USB ports disconnected. Problem persisted.

I tried different monitors, different mouse and keyboard and different audio devices. No fix

Turning Freesync off or on did not change anything

Removed ethernet cable/ disabled lan. No fix.

Checked PC case for grounding issues. Did Not see any. Also important to note is that I had 2 different PC cases throughout this ordeal.

PC temperatures stay within acceptable ranges so I know that's not an issue. EG CPU rarely goes over 70C while gaming.

At this point I was really running out of options. Here is where my troubleshooting has led me in the past few days. I decided to revert My OS back to windows 10 and this is where things get interesting. I have discovered that early builds of windows 10 have no stuttering. Once I update to The 22h2 version of windows 10, the stuttering returns. Any version prior to Windows 10 22h2 = no stutter. 22H2 and any version of windows 11 = stutter. I do not mind using an older version of windows 10 but the problem is, this cannot be a permanent solution. Windows will eventually force everyone into 22h2. Then I'll be stuck dealing with the stuttering again. As of tonight, I have installed Ubuntu to test if stuttering occurs there. Sure enough, I am getting the same stuttering issue in Ubuntu.

I really need some help figuring this out. At this point, I feel like I have tried every possible solution, short of just building an entirely new PC. I'm at my wits end, truly. I'm losing sleep and rapidly aging over this issue.

Could it simply just be that my specific combination of parts just don't play well together for some reason? Could it be some sort of conflicting drivers that I have failed to identify?

A PC that I put this much money into just shouldn't be performing poorly like this. I am desperate for any fix that doesn't involve buying a new PC. Any advice and contributions are greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to help.

 

[boju]

How frequent are the stutters on desktop? Hopefully short enough between pauses that Latencymon might show what's going on.

Latencymon often mentions audio but probably not that but you could try disable audio anyway to see what happens.

 

[Dillonr93]

How frequent are the stutters on desktop? Hopefully short enough between pauses that Latencymon might show what's going on.

Latencymon often mentions audio but probably not that but you could try disable audio anyway to see what happens.

Its once every few minutes, consistently. I have Ran latencymon quite a bit. It always says theres some sort of driver issue after running for a few minutes. It most often states that its a Nvidia driver or some kind of windows driver. I haven't really been able to dig much deeper than that, but uninstalling Nvidia drivers, even with DDU hasn't helped.

 

[boju]

Mind upping a screenshot of Latencymon. I might not be able to help narrow down, ill try, but someone else might.

 

[Dillonr93]

Mind upping a screenshot of Latencymon. I might not be able to help narrow down, ill try, but someone else might.

Yeah I can do that after work later. I'll try to post all the different driver errors I get from it since it's several of them.

 

[boju]

Does this happen in safemode as well?

 

[boju]

Yeah I can do that after work later. I'll try to post all the different driver errors I get from it since it's several of them.

Also screenshots of task manager processes both for cpu and ram sorted highest to lowest.

 

[boju]

Another thing that comes to mind is try disabling automatic device driver installation. Might need to reinstall Windows again for this setting to have an effect before anything is possibly installed.

Copy paste 'change device installation settings' in start bar.

 

[Dragos Manea]

This stuttering is usually a hardware issue, more exactly the GPU, some resistors or some capacitors are off from teh original value. Or maybe even the gpu needs to be reballed. Try with another videocard see if you keep stutter.

 

[boju]

This stuttering is usually a hardware issue, more exactly the GPU, some resistors or some capacitors are off from teh original value. Or maybe even the gpu needs to be reballed. Try with another videocard see if you keep stutter.

Yeah he tried 1080Ti, same thing.

 

[Dillonr93]

Does this happen in safemode as well?

Just tested. Doesn't seem to be an issue in safe mode but I can't really do any in depth testing there. I'll post some latencymon results soon

 

[boju]

Just tested. Doesn't seem to be an issue in safe mode but I can't really do any in depth testing there. I'll post some latencymon results soon

Just the desktop pauses should be enough to imply this might be software related. If it was hardware it would do it there too.

I reckon reinstall Windows, disconnect internet before installing and disable automatic device install option.

 

[Dillonr93]

Here are some Latencymon results.
The First 2 are on windows 10
The next 2 are windows 11 before updating graphics drivers
The final image is while in a game
Interestingly, Latencymon is only showing issues after sitting idle for a while. It is not showing issues when the stuttering is happening. Nothing looks out of the ordinary in task manager either asides from some occasional ethernet spikes. The weird spike at the end of the gpu was due to me closing the game right at the moment of taking the screenshot

 

[boju]

Test a game in offline mode, pull the network cable in game if internet is required to launch. Try disabling audio as well.

 

[Dillonr93]

Test a game in offline mode, pull the network cable in game if internet is required to launch. Try disabling audio as well.

Just tried. Didn't work. Weird thing with this is that disabling the audio drivers didn't disable the audio. I had to remove the drivers.

 

[Dillonr93]

Just the desktop pauses should be enough to imply this might be software related. If it was hardware it would do it there too.

I reckon reinstall Windows, disconnect internet before installing and disable automatic device install option.

Tried. And no fix. Also windows keeps automatically installing driver, even though the setting is turned off. I tried to fix in RegEdit but it doesnt even have the setting that needs to be modified.

 

[boju]

Windows does have it's own drivers and can't stop that. Automatic device driver updates via secondary tier from MS updates is what i was aiming for. Probably not that then.

Im wondering, you're not lifting mouse slightly without realising or moving mouse over a certain area on mouse pad where it looses tracking? Try not use mouse at all in game see if it still pauses.

 

[Dillonr93]

Windows does have it's own drivers and can't stop that. Automatic device driver updates via secondary tier from MS updates is what i was aiming for. Probably not that then.

Im wondering, you're not lifting mouse slightly without realising or moving mouse over a certain area on mouse pad where it looses tracking? Try not use mouse at all in game see if it still pauses.

I see. Its definitely not a mouse issue. Ive tried 3 different mice and have had the pc setup in multiple different locations. The stutter is accompanied by audio crackling in some games. Stutter happens on google chrome when using the scroll wheel.

 

[boju]

Hmm ok. Try a TV or monitor if it has speakers and make gpu audio as default.

 

[Dillonr93]

Tried. And no fix. Also windows keeps automatically installing driver, even though the setting is turned off. I tried to fix in RegEdit but it doesnt even have the setting that needs to be modified.

I tried this yet again and this time there seems to be improvement. No more desktop stuttering. No stuttering in civilization 6 anymore. Still get very slight, occasional stuttering while scrolling on chrome, though nowhere near as bad as before. Seems to just be when there are images that need to load. Cities skylines still stutters with audio crackle but perhaps this is just a game issue. I will test more games later and run some productivity apps and report back. Things are looking up for now.

 

[boju]

Hopefully. This is a weird issue considering differences in hardware over the duration. There must be something in common with it all. You're not using some driver booster or similar programs that updates drivers from god knows where?

Maybe Armoury Crate is causing issues.

 

[Dillonr93]

Hopefully. This is a weird issue considering differences in hardware over the duration. There must be something in common with it all. You're not using some driver booster or similar programs that updates drivers from god knows where?

Maybe Armoury Crate is causing issues.

Its gotta be some funky driver conflicts at this point. Probably drivers for the hardware as this issue happened in ubuntu as well. Its not armory crate. I haven't had that installed for pretty much this whole ordeal. Im not using any other programs like that either. What I did differently this time was I manually downloaded specific drivers and put them onto an external drive. On the fresh install I made sure windows didn't automatically install stuff. I manually installed all the drivers and now things seem to be better for now. I have read thats certan samsung ssds can cause this issue Im having but unfortunately the 980 pro doesn't have any drivers. You have to use the default windows driver for it. I can't imagine why Samsung didn't make drivers for it. The ssds are also the only physical components that haven't been swapped for a different model.

 

[boju]

I have Samsung 980 and 990, performance left default, no tweaking in Magician. Possibly firmware? I couldn't see Samsung or driver MS installs for communication with it has anything to do with it as im not experiencing this but there could be problems with one of the SSDs, but both? That's a hard ask but possible. Have you tried OS install on either to rule this out? and only have one physically connected. Might be worth doing.

 

[Dillonr93]

I have Samsung 980 and 990, performance left default, no tweaking in Magician. Possibly firmware? I couldn't see Samsung or driver MS installs for communication with it has anything to do with it as im not experiencing this but there could be problems with one of the SSDs, but both? That's a hard ask but possible. Have you tried OS install on either to rule this out? and only have one physically connected. Might be worth doing.

Yeah I've tried all that. Everything from running just one, to every combination of up to the three. Os on a different drive and/or different slot. Didn't matter either way. One interesting thing though is that one of my 1tb drive performs better than the other two drives. Samsung magician software with the firmware updates didn't help either

 

[Dillonr93]

I'm starting to think this is a situation where I have to get lucky on a fresh install. I have to hope that everything installs in such a way that all the components, driver, and OS can play nicely together. I got lucky on a fresh windows 10 install and the issue was gone. As soon as I upgraded to 11, it came back. Similarly, this current install of 11 i just did Is running much more smoothly so far.