[SOLVED] Occasional Hitching with Audio Distortion

[calebbest]

Question:
I've run into a strange issue that only happens when playing games. At seemingly random any game I'm playing will hold on a frame for 2-3 seconds with distorted (skipping?) audio in the background. This problem is present in something as graphically demanding as Read Dead Redemption 2 to something trivial like Bejeweled.

This are my specs and peripherals currently connected:

Specs:
ASUS ROG Strix 2080ti
AMD Ryzen 9 3900x Twelve Core Processor @ 3.8 GHz
32 GBs of DDR4 RAM @ 3000 MHz
Asus Prime X570-P MotherBoard
Samsung 970 Evo 1 tb M.2 SSD
1 TB Harddrive (x2)
2 TB Seagate Barracuda
1 TB Sandisk SSD
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G5, 80 Plus Gold 750W (A little over a year old)

Case has good airflow. It's a Lian Li O11 Air with 5 high air flow Noctua intakes.
CPU is cooled by an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 with 2 140mm static pressure focused Noctua fans (Top mounted as exhaust)

Accessories:
Logitech G910 Orion Spectrum Keyboard
Logitech G502 Gaming Mouse
LG 32" 2560x1440 (144 hz)
Blue Yeti USB Microphone
Wacom Cintiq 16

Troubleshooting I've Tried:
Fresh install of Windows
Updating Drivers
Rolling back graphics drivers
Memtest86 on RAM (All clear)
Browsed Event Viewer after hitching (Nothing)
Ran multiple synthetic tests to reproduce manually (Prime95, Furmark, Heaven)

Other Notes:
It doesn't seem related to the drive the game is running off of.
Temperatures and usage don't seem to spike.
Random intervals. Can happen as soon as I start playing or never in a 1 - 2 hour session.
Problem was not present until around 2 months ago.

Any thoughts? I've tried everything I can think of. Forums from other people who have had similar issues don't seem to have solutions that have been working for me.

 

[Ralston18]

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition?

Power down, unplug, open the case.

Clean out dust & debris.

Ensure by sight and feel that all connectors, cards, RAM, and jumpers are fully and firmly in place.

Look for signs of damage: swollen components, browned or blackened areas, bare conductor showing, pinched or kinked wires.

"2 months ago": Look in Reliability History for error codes, warnings, and even informational events that started happening about 2 months ago. Reliability History uses a timeline format that may make the start of the problem evident.

When you reinstalled drivers did you do so manually versus using some 3rd party driver installation utility?

 

[calebbest]

PSU specs added to the original post.

I do monthly cleanings of my PC, so no dust and debris. Checked all the connections last night, actually. Thought it may be an issue with the PCI-E power connectors on the card. Hardware looks okay.

Reliability history shows nothing of importance for me. Just a graphic driver crash that occurred from Maya being Maya.

Aside from a wireless card and GPU, all drivers were automatically acquired by Windows.

 

[calebbest]

I believe I've found the solution. There's a setting in the BIOS of Asus Prime X570-P that selects the generation of the PCIE ports. This, by default, is set to Auto. If you change the default to whatever the highest generation your GPU supports it should stop the stuttering entirely.