Odd video/audio stuttering

[lolzoloz9]

Hey guys, hoping you would be able to help me, as I have been trying to troubleshoot this for the last few weeks.

I find that after a 15-20 minutes (can vary) of either watching videos on youtube or netflix, or playing games, my entire system will start stuttering randomly. I have run the games with fraps and i can see the fps counter go from say 50 to 25 then back to 50. This is consistant and doesnt seem to stop even after shutting the program down. I will spin my cursor around in the desktop, and it will still stutter every couple of seconds. It seems to go away after a few minutes if I leave it alone though.

I have no clue what is causing it as ive monitored my gpu and cpu and neither are overheating.

All drivers are up to date and I have tried disabling all audio drivers except the Nvidia ones as my audio comes through the hdmi on the card.

The Cpu is an AMD FX 6200 six core processor
Gpu is a GTX 760, used to be a 560ti, still the same problem on both.
12Gb of ram
and a 500w psu

Any help at all would be very useful, I have seriously run out of things to test.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

To me it sounds like something suddenly is keeping the system busy. My first guess would be to have Task Manager up showing ALL USERS processes as you can repeat the problem, do you see anything at the top when you sort by CPU%? Second would be to run a full Malwarebytes scan then Antivirus scan, see if anything comes up.

 

[lolzoloz9]

Nothing other than the program itself is running, I tried malwarebytes and no problems detected at all. When I look at the resource monitor it seems like some of the cores will occasionally spike, but nothing ridiculous of my knowledge. :/

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Okay the PSU is enough (recommended 500W), the card seems modern enough, and you checked the temp. So my considerations at the moment would be to do a uninstall of the video drivers, then use Driver Sweeper to make sure all of it is removed. Reboot should put you in VGA, then download / install the newest driver 320.49 . Reboot and test again, does it repeat the problem.

The only next step (because your using AMD FX 6200) would be to set the graphics level / screen size of the game or on your desktop to a lower resolusion. Your NVidia card may be pushing too much that the system may be pausing for the CPU to catch up.

 

[lolzoloz9]

So i did what you said with the drivers, still no change. Could it be the memory? I havent tried testing it yet with MemTest86+ mainly hoping it wasnt a memory issue. Another thing i have heard could be a faulty power supply? Could a failing power supply cause this? I dont think it's a problem with chokepoints on the cpu because it happened on my 560ti as well. The problem only started recently and the componets were working fine for a while before this.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Okay but did you try reducing the graphics levels / lower resolution?

Okay your conflicting statements here "Gpu is a GTX 760, used to be a 560ti, still the same problem on both." and "The problem only started recently and the componets were working fine for a while before this." Are you trying to say recently while having the 560 this condition happened, so you then changed to a 760 to help resolve the issue but still have the problem?

Lastly, If your 'offline' from the network and run a DVD in the computer, a AVi Video or play a Solo game, does this problem still occur? Or only when online (Netflix, gaming etc.)

 

[lolzoloz9]

Yes I did try lowering the resolution, still no change.

And to try and clarify, I had a 560ti and everything was fine, a couple hiccups here and there but nothing major. Then this problem arose and i assumed the gpu was fried or starting to as it was hovering in the 70 and 80 degrees while playing games like minecraft and the stuttering was becoming an issue. Therefore, I bought a new gpu, my current 760, and the problem persisted.

And no the network shouldnt be an issue as it happens when playing in a single player game like witcher 2 and can continue to stutter when you quit out of the game to the desktop.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Is why I asked, because if the issue was only during online play that would probably point at something else as a problem. Okay we have done some basic elimination of suspects, lets try to remove a obvious one, can you uninstall the NVidia Drivers, then use Driver Sweeper to really remove them all, reboot you will be in VGA. Then download and install 320.49 drivers and reboot. Test that and see what you get?

 

[lolzoloz9]

already did that earlier and still did not see a change unfortunately

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Then we are down to two last suspects. 1) Windows hosed up and needs to be completely installed from scratch 2) the Hard Drive is failing so read / writes off it (like the Games or OS) causes 'stuttering' etc. when trying to read, then reread, then rereread, etc. over and over impacting performance.

The best solution first would be to run in a CMD Primpt chkdsk /f then run a sfc /scannow and do a reboot. If this doesn't produce a bunch of fixes to errors then to resolve #2 is to backup your data files (no programs or games) Wipe the entire HDD, reinstall the OS from CLEAN, and rebuild the system. If Windows was to blame this will resolve it, if not then the HDD will cause more problems during a 'clean install' and indicate it needs to be replaced

 

[lolzoloz9]

its not the hard drives since ive loaded games off both an ssd and my main drives which are 2 500gb in a raid 0 and same problem. Any chance its a failing power supply? i have heard that could cause problems or possibly an issue with the ram?

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Wait a minute. OKay you have a SSD in AHCI AND 2 500GBs in RAID 0 in the same computer? Where are the OS and games loaded, and this might be a key cause as well (yes not enough power can be a contributing factor is you have alot of stuff in the computer and not enough power to it).

 

[lolzoloz9]

The OS is on the 2 main drives, the ssd is basically being used as an extra drive just to throw a couple games on and thats about it.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Okay I see a design flaw in your layout with this if I may. First I would have a external TB to back up to ($50 at Walmart I think). I would disable the RAID then wipe all the drives. Here is why: No Games achieve better results on a SSD than a normal HDD, becuase they are still a application OVER Windows. So if Windows is still loading the video drivers, the font files, etc. to make the game work, then your still impacted on performance and won't see the benefit (besides games are not yet optimized for SSD specific performance benefits).

The standard configuration would be to OS and large programs (Dreamweaver, AutoDesk, etc.) on the SSD as your boot drive. Install all other programs (Office, Games, etc.) to the 500GB Drive, you could make D Programs and E Games so in case things go belly up you don't have to do too much recovery.

Then you need to manually go through Windows and move temp files, and your profile to the D drive, so when it does the million per day read writes to temp files, logs, and settings in your profile it won't wear out the SSD. Each game and program you would as well map to D / E as appropriate. For example I had to actually go into Steam AND Origin to tell them when they download games and patches to map to the D drive, because they tried to use up my entire SSD to do that, then erase and rewrite the GB of files over and over as they patched/installed. So it was wearing on mine as well.

I believe this will also resolve the stuttering, as the SSD is much faster then the HDD, so the SSD would queue up things rather then get bottled up waiting for the Audio / Video Drivers - whatever else Windows needed to be loaded off the RAID as it is now. Moving everything to the RAID and to the SSD and back and forth, I think a few things got hosed up in the processes as well. I believe this clean rebuild will be optimally best.

If your unconvinced, please do google SSD+HDD setup or configurations, and you will see the benchmark differences comparing a normal HDD, even in RAID 0, with the SSD and SSD+HDD setup. I boot / reboot now in 15-30seconds from power button push to full Windows icons and able to click open applications. Applications do load the initial window almost like click -boom there it is. Games load alot faster as they don't need to wait on Windows to do things, it is just pure game loading itself.

 

[lolzoloz9]

As much as i know i am not using the ssd very efficiently, I dont believe the performance boost is worth all the extra hassle to do so to be honest. I dont believe the drives are my problem as I had been using this current setup before the stuttering happened anyways.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Well invest in a heavier duty (750-800Watt) one and see if that clears the issue since that is where your leaning towards as your solution.

Personally I think since you did a Driver Sweep (Not a step to miss please note this is much different then just simple uninstall) and reinsalled the drivers with no success or change, it sounds to me as the OS might have a issue which would be a reinstall of everything anyway, and thus might as well set it up as the normal set up to remove even that from the equation.