PC Stuttering Slightly - Really annoying, tried everything

[rilicthewolf]

OK, so one day my PC just started to stutter, ever so slightly. It was around 3 days ago, and I was playing a game when it happened. It's like the entire system skips a frame (a "general freeze", I think it's called?), sound and everything, for about a split second. Then a second or so later it happens again, and again. It was really annoying because I was in a game, so I had the idea of closing the game and reopening. It didn't seem to work, and it persisted on desktop.

So I then tried updating and restarting the computer. It seemed fine on the sign-in screen, but it started again when loading into the desktop, leading me to believe it was a program issue. I slowly closed all of my running-at-startup programs one by one and waited to see if it happened. Even after I closed the last one, it still kept happening.

Next, I tried updating drivers. First my graphics driver, but that didn't seem to work. That's when I looked online and found Driver Booster, which I used to update everything from Intel drivers to motherboard drivers. Despite doing a seemingly good job at updating everything and restarting, it still didn't work. The mysterious stuttering persisted.

I then began to worry if it was my power supply being overburdened a bit. I looked online and found that power supplies can handle wattage very slightly higher than what they are rated for, but it definitely isn't safe. So with that in mind, I calculated how much power my PC used compared to the power supply installed, and even with an overclocked CPU, it was well within the limit.

Speaking of overclocking, I tried resetting the clock speed of my CPU after that. That didn't work either, even trying different clock speeds to see if it made a difference (using Asus's TPU settings).

I was stumped at this point. I had no idea what the heck was causing this. So next, I reluctantly tried resetting Windows, deleting programs but keeping personal files. After it had done its job, I logged into Windows to find a completely black screen with a cursor.
I had somehow made the problem worse.
I eventually fixed this by using my laptop to create a boot media and using that to update Windows (I could still use CTRL ALT DEL to get into task manager, which let me into file explorer), and I was greeted with a clean Windows OS. And yet, the problem still occurred. It still stuttered.

Yesterday, however, I tried something more simple. All this time, I had my PC's power plugged into an extender to make room for a WiFi booster in the main socket. I swapped them around, and boom, it seemed to fix the problem! I was both happy and annoyed at the same time.

However, this morning, I discovered it was still stuttering. So the problem wasn't fixed after all.

As you can see, I've tried everything, and I'm starting to think it's something more hardware related. Power supply, maybe? Bad GPU? That would suck, because here are my specs:

Intel 6700k @ 4.6GHz OC
Nvidia GTX 1080
16GB RAM
Asus ROG Maximus Ranger VIII Motherboard
600 Watt Power Supply from Corsair
Samsung 960 Evo m.2 SSD Boot Drive
Windows 10

Can any of you help me out here? I'm really stuck.

EDIT: My RGB Keyboard is also stuttering, apparently. The lighting is freezing in time with the freezing on the system, so it's most likely caused by the same thing.

EDIT 2: Following the first solution, I plugged my computer using ethernet into the nearby WiFi booster. That actually seems to have fixed it, but only time will tell. I'll test this for a day, and if it still works by tomorrow, I'll mark it as the solution.

 

[norcalsc]

honestly it could be your wifi. I have found that wifi tends to be a bit inconsistent, wifi boosters can cause havoc as well. is there any way to run an ethernet cable from router/modem?

 

[rilicthewolf]

honestly it could be your wifi. I have found that wifi tends to be a bit inconsistent, wifi boosters can cause havoc as well. is there any way to run an ethernet cable from router/modem?

I just connected an ethernet cable from my motherboard socket to the WiFi booster I mentioned. That seems to have worked, actually. I'll mark this as an answer if it stays fixed for a day. Thanks a bunch!
Side question, how does WiFi actually cause a stuttering issue like that? Interference or just a bad network card?

 

[CaptainCretin]

Check the task manager to see if a process is max'ing out one or more cpu cores, you might have an infection such as a coin miner.

As it affects USB as well, try unplugging everything using USB as possible, and see if that stops the issue; it might be a usb device is developing a fault, or there was a driver update you didnt notice, and the new driver is bad.

 

[Yoplait95]

I've had this issue in the past, only solution that worked was getting a new mobo. May not be applicable to your situation, but you could to a the board if you have the time.

May also be a psu issue, as long as you can rule out your mobo. Since the pay is by far cheaper, try another pay, doesn't have to be good quality. We are just trying to rule out parts.