Question Occasional audio/video stutter on Windows 10/11

[Tocoe]

I recently (within the last 2 weeks) started noticing this repeating problem. Every now and then (with no regularity) my display drops to about 2 fps and the audio stutters, lasting for about 1-2 seconds.

My Specs:
MOBO: Gigabyte x570 aorus elite wi-fi
CPU: Ryzen 3900x
PSU: Corsair HX1200
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 3070 8gb
MEM: Corsair Vengeance 16gb 3200hz (with default X.M.P profile 1.)

Things of note (troubleshooting info):

1. I started experiencing this issue around when win11 became available, so one of the first things I tried was a full cloud backup (via one-drive) and clean install of windows 11 (As I was planning on upgrading anyway.)
2. My monitor is not my audio output, so the stutter isn't limited to the GPU/Monitor.
3. This issue has occurred regardless of software being used (firefox, different games, etc.)
4. I have run memtest twice (both resulted with 0 errors.)
5. I have never overclocked any component in my build.
6. This issue has been very difficult to troubleshoot due to the infrequency of the stutters.

Any help, or pointers in the right direction would be massively appreciated, as I haven't found much information by searching online.

 

[Colif]

does it happen when watching YouTube videos?

i noticed a lag spike that happens once a week or so that causes sound to go strange for a second. I use HWINO to track the Average effective clock of my CPU and every time it happens the CPU spikes to about 3k

I have the same motherboard. and RGB Vengeance Pro ram... rest not same.

it does'nt show on event viewer, I don't see any scheduled tasks for same time. Windows doesn't see it....

What bios version? I am on F20. I don't know if updating it would help. If clean install doesn't fix it, its one less thing for me to try.
I updated my Sound drivers and I have latest LAN drivers - I wonder if its a DPC latency issue as I see a lot of those these days.
latest chipset drivers? I know I don't as they only 3 days old - https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/x570

 

[Tocoe]

does it happen when watching YouTube videos?

i noticed a lag spike that happens once a week or so that causes sound to go strange for a second. I use HWINO to track the Average effective clock of my CPU and every time it happens the CPU spikes to about 3k

I have the same motherboard. and RGB Vengeance Pro ram... rest not same.

it does'nt show on event viewer, I don't see any scheduled tasks for same time. Windows doesn't see it....

What bios version? I am on F20. I don't know if updating it would help. If clean install doesn't fix it, its one less thing for me to try.
I updated my Sound drivers and I have latest LAN drivers - I wonder if its a DPC latency issue as I see a lot of those these days.
latest chipset drivers? I know I don't as they only 3 days old - https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/x570

Thanks for the reply, For me this seems to have nothing to do with youtube. You could be onto something regarding the CPU spikes, but I can't really verify as I have yet to monitor performance during a stutter.
I am on the latest bios for the mobo, and latest drivers too, (latest nvidia driver and realtek audio driver.)
I did run a DPC latency check and it didn't find any issues, just said gave that message "your pc can run without interruptions" (paraphrasing,) but again, I have not run a DPC latency check during a stutter, as they only occur once or twice a day.

 

[Colif]

i have 2 charts on my desktop at all times, one shows CPU CCD1 (tdie) which is average temp of CPU, and one that shows Average Effective Clock. Most of the time Average clock is around 200 except during the spikes. The score ignores the constant up/down speed jump of one core that occur on Ryzen and show what most of CPU is actually doing.

I use HWINFO for the charts - https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-to-use-hwinfo-to-track-sensor-values-on-ryzen.3693704/
to show graph you just right click a sensor in sensor view and choose show graph.

Oddly mine seem to happen mostly at the end of the week.

I don't know where to look either. I suspect its something to do with windows itself but only as it didn't happen in Win 10.

Its not lan drivers as I have newest according to https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html

it might not be Youtube, its just the most common thing I use PC for. I have seen it happen once in a game.

 

[Tocoe]

i have 2 charts on my desktop at all times, one shows CPU CCD1 (tdie) which is average temp of CPU, and one that shows Average Effective Clock. Most of the time Average clock is around 200 except during the spikes. The score ignores the constant up/down speed jump of one core that occur on Ryzen and show what most of CPU is actually doing.

I use HWINFO for the charts - https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-to-use-hwinfo-to-track-sensor-values-on-ryzen.3693704/
to show graph you just right click a sensor in sensor view and choose show graph.

Oddly mine seem to happen mostly at the end of the week.

I don't know where to look either. I suspect its something to do with windows itself but only as it didn't happen in Win 10.

Its not lan drivers as I have newest according to https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html

it might not be Youtube, its just the most common thing I use PC for. I have seen it happen once in a game.

I have HWinfo, so I'll graph my performance through the week and update this thread If I notice any performance correlation.
I agree that this seems to be a Windows thing, as this has only been happening for the past couple weeks, and my PC has passed all diagnostic tests, has latest drivers and BIOS and is performing as expected on benchmarks.

 

[AstroThomas]

Hi Tocoe, did you find a fix for this in the end? I had this issue on Windows 11 but even after a complete clean wipe and reinstall of Windows 10 it still happens, no fix yet.

 

[Tocoe]

Hi Tocoe, did you find a fix for this in the end? I had this issue on Windows 11 but even after a complete clean wipe and reinstall of Windows 10 it still happens, no fix yet.

Hey Thomas, Unfortunately I wasn't able to narrow it down to a specific cause. Performance montitoring during the stutters didn't yield anything out of the ordinary (e.g. I didn't notice irregular spikes in hardware usage, or processes that may have been responsible.) However, At some point the issue stopped occurring, and I haven't experienced a stutter in over a week. My best guess is that this was a result of a windows update, and was resolved by Microsoft, or my attempts at manually updating drivers.

If you haven't already you could try updating ethernet drivers, GPU, audio and others. If you're on an old BIOS version it may be worth flashing as well. I'm sorry i cant help further, At this stage it is impossible for me to try and replicate because the issue has mysteriously stopped entirely. As always, i will update this thread if I experience more stutters, and are able to narrow it down to a specific cause.

 

[Tocoe]

Just updating this thread, as the issue returned a few weeks ago and I am no closer to identifying the source of the stutters. At this point I've pretty much given up, the glitches are pretty infrequent, so it's not the end of the world but a solution would make me unimaginably greatful.

 

[Colif]

I am helping someone else with an Aorus X570 elite, and they too have this error.
I am currently running latencymon in the background waiting for my weekly spike but I really need to watch videos for it to happen, I don't think I ever had it effect anything other than Youtube

One source of latency can be WIFI drivers so I disabled my WiFi yesterday

its not tied to bios, chipset drivers don't help either. If I get a spike I will at least have some way to figure out what is cause. Not why, but its a start.

 

[Shieko]

Hi, I know this is a kind of old thread but I'm researching this myself as I have the exact same thing happen from time to time. Closest I could find was acknowledgement of the same described issue by AMD relating to fTPM, which will have a fix available in May apparently.

AMD acknowledges Ryzen stuttering issues on Windows 10 and 11 - gHacks Tech News
AMD Isolates Windows 11 and Windows 10 Performance Stuttering Issues to fTPM | Page 2 | TechPowerUp Forums (has some video examples)

Fingers crossed this is it and it's all outta our hands.

 

[Colif]

another thing that can be cause of the latency is Nvidia drivers settings

right click desktop
choose show more options
choose Nvidia control panel
open Manage 3d settings
scroll the right panel down to Power Management Mode
set this to Prefer maximum performance
Apply

my stutter/latency is gone now. Give it a try.

 

[bilalirfanpk]

I know its an old thread but I am facing similar issues for 15 days now and I have an intel 10400f paired with a RTX2060. The stutters are so random and twice or thrice a day max while watching any video in browser/media player or just while gaming. I have tried updating and doing everything but just cannot seems to get to the root cause of the problem.

 

[Colif]

I know its an old thread but I am facing similar issues for 15 days now and I have an intel 10400f paired with a RTX2060. The stutters are so random and twice or thrice a day max while watching any video in browser/media player or just while gaming. I have tried updating and doing everything but just cannot seems to get to the root cause of the problem.

I would suggest starting your own thread and we will assist you in figuring out cause.

for anyone with AMD, try updating BIOS/chipset drivers. In the end that was what fixed it for me.