Question Random stuttering and freezing with first build

[RiderKick87]

I'm a first-timer who built a PC a few months ago, but since day one I've been experiencing a couple of bizarre problems that I cannot figure out how to fix. Both happen at complete random.

The first is my PC would experience periods of stuttering that seems to come and go on its own, and vary in how stuttery and laggy it would feel. Clearing the CMOS seemed to help, but it still creeps in from time to time.

The other problem is that my web browser would occasionally freeze while watching streaming videos on sites like YouTube, Netflix, etc. Only browser freezes, the rest of my PC is unaffected. The freeze typically lasts around 30 seconds to a minute before everything goes back to normal, and CPU usage sees a small spike during it. I figured out I can unfreeze it by doing things like moving the window, opening a video in my media player, opening Taskbar settings, or by using WIN+CTRL+SHIFT+B. It's not a problem that happens often, but it's still frustrating.

Neither problem has caused a BSOD, locked up my whole PC, or caused a crash to desktop. My temps are good, I've done no overclocking, no resources are being hogged, no malware or viruses found, a pass of memtest86 showed no errors, no disk errors, and I don't keep anything running in the background. I've been pretty good at keeping my drivers and bios up to date from my motherboard's site, since I opted out of installing Armoury Crate.

Throughout all of my troubleshooting I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome and Edge, uninstalling the two browser extensions I use, clearing cache and cookies, disabling as much of Windows 11's superfluous background apps as I could, resetting Windows 11, doing a repair install of Windows 11, making sure all of my cables and components are properly connected, turning off XMP, clearing CMOS, and using DDU to try different versions of my graphics drivers. The problems still occur.

One thing that sticks out to me is a weird problem I had encountered early on - One of the sticks of RAM I had originally bought was dead, so I returned it for a new pair. I didn't realize one of the new sticks wasn't properly seated until I had an instance where all of my RAM was somehow being used up. Task Manager was showing all or nearly all of the 16gb stick was being used, but I wasn't doing anything intensive at the time, no programs seemed to be taking it up, and closing programs didn't seem to free it up. I haven't had any mysterious spikes in RAM usage since making sure both were properly seated, so I'm not sure if that would be the cause.

I feel like I'm in over my head with this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.


Intel Core i7-13700K
ASUS TUF Gaming Z790-PRO WIFI
G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MT/s CL30
GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Super Gaming OC 12G
Samsung 990 Pro 2tb
FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Windows 11 Pro
(I didn't realize how many of the parts had "Pro" in their name until afterwards, lol)

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Clearing the CMOS seemed to help, but it still creeps in from time to time.

now try running the "Load Optimized Defaults" option in the BIOS.

with manufacturer set base defaults from the clear CMOS option,
it will often be running at lower than expected performance.

also make sure you have a good power profile enabled in Windows settings.
many times the CPU and other components can be running at below manufacturer rated specs with "Power Saving" or other lower performance profiles enabled.

turning off XMP

and you definitely want the XMP profile enabled.

 

[RiderKick87]

now try running the "Load Optimized Defaults" option in the BIOS.

with manufacturer set base defaults from the clear CMOS option,
it will often be running at lower than expected performance.


and you definitely want the XMP profile enabled.

I did use "Load Optimized Defaults" after I cleared the CMOS. Would XMP have any effect on the problems I'm experiencing?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Would XMP have any effect on the problems I'm experiencing?

with the RAM running at base speeds/timings it can cause what some call "stuttering" in games.
it will degrade performance system-wide vs running at the RAM's manufacturer rated specs.

besides Windows own power settings,
also make sure Nvidia Control Panel has settings optimized for better performance in games.

been pretty good at keeping my drivers and bios up to date from my motherboard's site

just make sure to keep up with it,
the BIOS especially will be updated to provide better performance over time and to fix possible issues.

 

[RiderKick87]

with the RAM running at base speeds/timings it can cause what some call "stuttering" in games.
it will degrade performance system-wide vs running at the RAM's manufacturer rated specs.

besides Windows own power settings,
also make sure Nvidia Control Panel has settings optimized for better performance in games.


just make sure to keep up with it,
the BIOS especially will be updated to provide better performance over time and to fix possible issues.

By degraded performance system-wide, would that also effect less demanding things like web browsing? Because the stuttering carries over to that.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

By degraded performance system-wide, would that also effect less demanding things like web browsing?

slower memory wouldn't out-right cause it, but can attribute to such things.

just means that your RAM is running slower than it is manufacturer to.
so everything in the system, and all software, that utilizes RAM will be running slower than it would with the higher speeds & timings in place.

 

[RiderKick87]

Thanks, I'll try enabling XMP and see how things work out. Hopefully that solves both the stuttering as well as the odd freezing I sometimes get when watching streaming videos on my browser.

I was leaning towards this being some sort of issue with my RAM, because I don't know what else could explain it. There's also that weird one-off problem I mentioned when I mistakenly had only one stick installed , which stuck out in my mind. I feel like I've done everything short of reinstalling Windows and swapping out components.