Question Stuttering across entire desktop ?

[bentheblobfish]

My PC has been experiencing worsening stuttering over the last 6 months or so. at first it was barely any microstuttering, but now it will just freeze my PC when im even just launching a game, and randomly stutters in all games and even just in web browser or on desktop. IE: in rainbow six siege, a game i consistently get 200+ FPS in, even when i lock framerate at 144 FPS will randomly drop to 100 for a second because of a stutter (as in the stutter brings the average down from 144 to 100). Same thing happens in valorant, although less severe. Reducing settings can sometimes help issue, but not always (Makes me think its not GPU but not sure. going to try GPU in a friends system in a week or two). Some games that should run fine also STRUGGLE to run such as fortnite, which is almost exclusively stutters.

Specs:
RTX 2070S
Ryzen 5 3600X w/ stock cooler.
Teamgroup DDR4 3200Mhz
Corsair CX650 (80+ bronze)
MSI PRO-VDH WiFi
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1tb
Seagate Barracuda 2tb
1080p 144hz monitor
Windows 10 Home

Tried Solutions:

• Replacing CPU (Returned new CPU)
• Replacing Motherboard (returned new mobo)
• Replacing SSD (before was some MP33 256gb Teamgroup SSD)
• Unplugging HDD
• Fresh windows install on new SSD.
• Running game on said new SSD with no external programs outside of the game.
• Taking the PC to microcenter - “we cant find anything wrong with the system”. maybe PSU or power delivery if they used a test bench?

Countless software things, such as:

• Pretty much everything imaginable with drivers (DDU, old drivers, etc)
• Defragging and optimizing drives
• Disabling antivirus, disabling game bar, HPET, and so many more i cant even remember

Notes:
Thermals shouldnt be an issue - consistently below 75
Happens pretty much the same with stock settings, overclock, and underclock on both GPU and CPU. Maybe a little worse with OC as expected but not a lot.
Happens in all games pretty much the same. minor differences in severity.
Have yet to replace ram because of Memtest86 w no fails and testing each RAM stick individually w same issue.
Pretty sure its PC side and not the displayport cable or monitor as the framerate counter drops after a stutter in game.

No clue what this could be. Looking for guidance.

 

[bentheblobfish]

I just noticed that the stutter on the desktop occurs almost in a cadence - The desktop stutter does not occur when there is a page fault necessarily. It occurs when the page fault counter UPDATES (the LatencyMon window I'm moving around in circles will stutter and stay in place for a split-second when the page fault counter updates in LatencyMon. does not happen in other windows). When running R6, there wasn't always a pagefault when the stutter occurred. there still is a very high pagefault count I know, however.

 

[geofelt]

Temps are ok. 75 maximum across system.

Just discussed pagefaults in a reply above in detail; about 17,000 when all I did was launch a game and run userbenchmark.

CPU-Z got a bench of 502.1 - thinking i just lost the silicone lottery.

502 is perfectly normal. (FWIW that is silicon lottery, not silicone)

Hard page faults are nasty, even a few of them. How much ram do you have?
It should be 16gb at least.

When the cpu is merrily going along calculating and it attempts an instruction or data that is not in ram, Everything halts and windows will go to the page file to retrieve that missing data. If the page file is on a hard drive, that is particularly bad because the program waits even longer.
If you are really short of ram, windows may have to write out a page before it can read in what you need.
It is possible that you may have acquired malware or a virus. Or, some apps are notorious for hogging ram .
Chrome tabs and discord are two I have heard of.

 

[bentheblobfish]

502 is perfectly normal. (FWIW that is silicon lottery, not silicone)

Hard page faults are nasty, even a few of them. How much ram do you have?
It should be 16gb at least.

When the cpu is merrily going along calculating and it attempts an instruction or data that is not in ram, Everything halts and windows will go to the page file to retrieve that missing data. If the page file is on a hard drive, that is particularly bad because the program waits even longer.
If you are really short of ram, windows may have to write out a page before it can read in what you need.
It is possible that you may have acquired malware or a virus. Or, some apps are notorious for hogging ram .
Chrome tabs and discord are two I have heard of.

16gb of ram. Page file on SSD. getting hard page faults, but memory is only at 45%, which is confusing. Getting at LEAST 1 page fault a second. When loading something big, its a lot more. Ive seen 1000 page faults in a second.

Here is latencymon pic after 40 minutes of playing League of Legends with discord running in background.

https://imgur.com/a/zJ3uKQz

View: https://imgur.com/a/zJ3uKQz


Here is latencymon pic after playing rainbow six for a few minutes, wifi OFF except at the end when i turned it on to upload screenshot.

https://imgur.com/a/TrOsUza

View: https://imgur.com/a/TrOsUza


Note that while I was actually in game in rainbow six, there were no pagefaults besides 10-20 tops. stutters occurred without a pagefault happening at the same time.

Also, I ran a registry cleaner (wisecleaner), no fix.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

I would put windows and games on the ssd and pull the hard drive, unplug etc. Then see if this persists.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Sorry could you show me what is on the d drive?

 

[geofelt]

See how you do if you shut down discord.

 

[bentheblobfish]

I would put windows and games on the ssd and pull the hard drive, unplug etc. Then see if this persists.

Sorry could you show me what is on the d drive?

Already tried this. I formatted D drive after reinstalling windows to new SSD, so currently empty. problem persisted with everything on SSD and HDD unplugged.

See how you do if you shut down discord.

Tried this as well. No change.

 

[bentheblobfish]

New information:
LatencyMon shows nvlddmkm.sys (the Nvidia windows kernel mode driver, version 511.65) as having the highest DPC execution time for the system. When using DPC Latency Checker, there appear to be spikes in DPC latency, picture below. When in game, this latency will level out to around 1000 µs, picture below.

Also attached is a pictures of the drivers and their maxium execution time.

https://imgur.com/a/ZsddLnw

View: https://imgur.com/a/ZsddLnw


Bad drivers maybe? bad hardware? Could drivers account for hard pagefaults? DDU did not change anything

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Use cpu-z and post cpu page and memory tab page plz. Please check and then post under advanced system settings, system properties, performance tab, and advanced tab.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Sorry for all the questions but what bios are you running on the motherboard?

 

[bentheblobfish]

Use cpu-z and post cpu page and memory tab page plz. Please check and then post under advanced system settings, system properties, performance tab, and advanced tab.

https://imgur.com/a/Tc7UY5D

View: https://imgur.com/a/Tc7UY5D

Sorry for all the questions but what bios are you running on the motherboard?

Bios version 2.8

Here is the speccy for my system in case you want it, has pretty much anything you could want in terms of my specs:
http://speccy.piriform.com/results/3pwAMHsu78KjTnNoNlMqkhC

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

I noticed windows installed a Nvidia driver from September 2020. If you have windows update on set it to pause, then check your gpu driver for version. If it has been changed by windows, reinstall the most recent one without installing GeForce Experience. Go here to your motherboard support page and make sure your chipset and wifi drivers are up to date. B550M PRO-VDH WIFI (msi.com)

 

[bentheblobfish]

I noticed windows installed a Nvidia driver from September 2020. If you have windows update on set it to pause, then check your gpu driver for version. If it has been changed by windows, reinstall the most recent one without installing GeForce Experience. Go here to your motherboard support page and make sure your chipset and wifi drivers are up to date. B550M PRO-VDH WIFI (msi.com)

Chipset and wifi drivers should be up to date. When I check which graphics driver im using, it says the latest (511.65). not sure why that driver is installed.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

So you had mentioned originally that you were going to test a better gpu at your friends. That would be the next thing to look at I beleive.

 

[bentheblobfish]

So you had mentioned originally that you were going to test a better gpu at your friends. That would be the next thing to look at I beleive.

Alright, ill see what I can do.

 

[helper800]

Something to consider are shorts within the case particularly the motherboard or graphics card. Any loose screws from a fan that worked itself loose or maybe the motherboard was installed on a rouge standoff from the case. Go into BIOS and load optimized defaults and then save and exit. I would check to make sure you are on the latest non-beta BIOS for the motherboard and if you are maybe try to go back 1 version or reflash the latest version. Can also check drivers one at a time by uninstalling them and letting windows use a generic one for things like the Wi-Fi and the chipset. Sometimes bad driver installs for something innocuous like Wi-Fi can mess with a system. I would also download and install Samsung Magician to install your SSDs latest firmware updates. Can also check the CPU for any bent pins and the motherboard socket for anything unclean. I would also turn off VRR (G-sync) in the Nvidia control panel and set a global frame rate limiter to 144 or 143.

 

[bentheblobfish]

Something to consider are shorts within the case particularly the motherboard or graphics card. Any loose screws from a fan that worked itself loose or maybe the motherboard was installed on a rouge standoff from the case. Go into BIOS and load optimized defaults and then save and exit. I would check to make sure you are on the latest non-beta BIOS for the motherboard and if you are maybe try to go back 1 version or reflash the latest version. Can also check drivers one at a time by uninstalling them and letting windows use a generic one for things like the Wi-Fi and the chipset. Sometimes bad driver installs for something innocuous like Wi-Fi can mess with a system. I would also download and install Samsung Magician to install your SSDs latest firmware updates. Can also check the CPU for any bent pins and the motherboard socket for anything unclean. I would also turn off VRR (G-sync) in the Nvidia control panel and set a global frame rate limiter to 144 or 143.

I have already reinstalled motherboard, including swapping out for a new one. BIOS is latest non beta already after being on the pre-loaded defaults that came stock. I will try doing that with the Drivers, but keep in mind latencymon says that the Nvidia drivers and Directx drivers are the longest DPC latency ones. Ill try samsung magician. Turning off VRR has no change. I just recently reinstalled cpu, and there were no bent pins. I also tried a new CPU completely and it didnt change anything.

 

[helper800]

I have already reinstalled motherboard, including swapping out for a new one.

If there were a rouge standoff, which is installed in the case, touching the bottom of the first motherboard it could very well be touching the bottom of the second motherboard. Though there is a low chance this is what is happening it is good to cross the t's and dot the i's in your situation.

 

[bentheblobfish]

If there were a rouge standoff, which is installed in the case, touching the bottom of the first motherboard it could very well be touching the bottom of the second motherboard. Though there is a low chance this is what is happening it is good to cross the t's and dot the i's in your situation.

I checked - not the issue.