Question Stuttering across PC, especially when loading anything or booting up a game.

[bentheblobfish]

Hi all.
In the past months, my PC has been experiencing stuttering across the entire PC, especially when loading into areas in games. In games, when starting a multiplayer match and loading into the map or just loading into games in general, the stutter is fairly long. sometimes, when booting up a game from desktop, my pc can freeze for up to 5-10 seconds.

I think this could have something to do with a very high number of hard pagefaults. I can fairly consistently get 1000-2000 hard pagefaults when opening up chrome, for example (based on readings from latencymon). There might be a slight hitch when I do this as well. When launching games, it varies, however in performance monitor when launching fortnite (the worst game I have tested) i have seen it be 100,000+ hard page faults a second.

I have seen moderately high DPC latency in latencymon (up to 1500, give or take) from the video driver as well. from what I understand, DPC latency and hard pagefaults go hand in hand, but I could be wrong.

I have replaced every component in the PC except for the GPU and the PSU attempting to fix this. This includes a fresh install of windows on an SSD.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Eximo]

Long shot, have you looked the vBIOS version?

 

[bentheblobfish]

It is a shame stutters only happen in games. I saw the results in safe mode, not conclusive. Predictable actually.


do you mean 1 cable runs both slots? the cable has 2 connectors it can plug into GPU? Mine is the same.
it think it should be okay on a 2070, its not recommended on 30 series cards as they need more power than 1 cable will provide.
Or do you mean its got an extender cable as that isn't likely to be a good idea.

Dark breeze was here to see what I had missed.
did you install Samsung NVMe drivers?

We keep going back to storage as its seemingly most likely candidate for stutter at game launch. But they seem fine.
You tried 2 different ssd and it happens even if hdd not plugged in. So its taunting me now.

Firstly, stutter happens across the whole desktop. I mentioned this to darkbreeze.
Whenever opening a program i can get hitches, switching chrome tabs, etc. a LOT can trigger a hitch or stutter. Even booting up windows.

It is hard for me to see them in safe mode, in part because its locked at 60 fps. they are not even super visible with my 144hz monitor unless in game. I couldnt see stuttering in safe mode but it could just be harder to see.

Its a non modular PSU, and the 1 cable that comes with the PSU has 2 different outputs. No external extender cable or anything. Looks like this more or less. Maybe a bit less janky.

I did install those drivers. No change.

 

[bentheblobfish]

Long shot, have you looked the vBIOS version?

I couldnt tell you what a vBIOS was.

 

[Colif]

Video bios, on GPU

think you need to use GPU Z to see it = https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

it might show under GPU in speccy.

Its a non modular PSU, and the 1 cable that comes with the PSU has 2 different outputs.

i think that should be okay

 

[Darkbreeze]

That cable should be fine.

I know you probably already answered this and I'm just missing it, but while I know you said you did not do a clean install of Windows when you changed boards and then changed back, did you in fact, at any point since you began having problems, do a clean install of Windows AT ALL? At ANY point?

Is system restore enabled? If so, I would at least temporarily disable it for all drives and I would also disable automatic disk optimization (Degragmenter, TRIM) in the system tools settings.

What malware or antivirus utility are you using?

 

[bentheblobfish]

I know you probably already answered this and I'm just missing it, but while I know you said you did not do a clean install of Windows when you changed boards and then changed back, did you in fact, at any point since you began having problems, do a clean install of Windows AT ALL? At ANY point?

Yes. multiple times

Is system restore enabled? If so, I would at least temporarily disable it for all drives and I would also disable automatic disk optimization (Degragmenter, TRIM) in the system tools settings.

consider it done

What malware or antivirus utility are you using?

Windows defender and common sense.

That being said, when I took PC to microcenter and they couldnt figure out what was wrong, they did a virus scan which (to my knowledge) is fairly extensive and found nothing suspicious.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I am not worried about there being an infection. I am concerned that if there was a third party scanner involved IT might be using unrealistic resources and firing itself up to scan everything involved each time you start up an application or game, which could cause lag and such if it's hogging a bunch of resources to do that. But if the only thing you have is Windows defender and have done clean installs and Windows update and drivers are all up to date, then it is unlikely to be that.

Do you have any backup software, like Acronis true image, or anything else running, that might be getting triggered to create backup images when you start something up for some reason?

If not, then I'm about at a loss and the only thing I can think of is that there is either a problem with the CPU itself or one of the drives, and really I feel like those are the only things really left even though you've looked at the drives a bit. Maybe Colif comes up with something though.

 

[bentheblobfish]

I am not worried about there being an infection. I am concerned that if there was a third party scanner involved IT might be using unrealistic resources and firing itself up to scan everything involved each time you start up an application or game, which could cause lag and such if it's hogging a bunch of resources to do that. But if the only thing you have is Windows defender and have done clean installs and Windows update and drivers are all up to date, then it is unlikely to be that.

Do you have any backup software, like Acronis true image, or anything else running, that might be getting triggered to create backup images when you start something up for some reason?

If not, then I'm about at a loss and the only thing I can think of is that there is either a problem with the CPU itself or one of the drives, and really I feel like those are the only things really left even though you've looked at the drives a bit. Maybe Colif comes up with something though.

Gotcha.
No backup software
Also, ive tried replacing the CPU already with a 5600X (returned) and had no change unfortunately.
Did you see what i said before about the GPU at higher frequencies?

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, just read through the whole thread, and I don't see any mention at all about "the GPU at higher frequencies".

 

[boju]

Might be worth trying clean install again, clean slate, no mash of previous installed/uninstalled drivers, so we're on the same page what has been installed. Connect ethernet once automatic driver installation setting is disabled, incase something from Microsoft is causing issues. Have chipset /lan/vga driver ready on usb stick just incase they're needed.

https://www.tenforums.com/installat...able-automatic-driver-installation-start.html

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-automatic-driver-updates-windows-10

 

[bentheblobfish]

So, just read through the whole thread, and I don't see any mention at all about "the GPU at higher frequencies".

Basically, I ran a GPU overclock auto tuner with MSI afterburner, and the graph had a pretty steady and stable overclock until higher voltages. Once it got there, the overclock dropped to stock values (dont think its allowed to go below), and the tuner said the overclock was unstable. Makes me think the stutter happened with the GPU at a higher frequency, causing the auto overclock to not be able to progress.

TDLR: At higher frequencies, auto overclock tuner became unstable.

Original quote:

Final tidbit before I go to sleep...
The other night i tried overclocking GPU to fix the issue with an OC scanner; the scanner was alright at lower clocks and applied appropriate boost, but once it reached higher voltage, the OC scanner curve pretty much met the stock Mhz values, and the scanner told me it was an "unstable overclock". makes me think that at higher voltages, the scanner would push the card and a stutter or something would happen, causing it to drop back down a level.

Basically, i think the card was more unstable at a higher voltage.

 

[bentheblobfish]

Might be worth trying clean install again, clean slate, no mash of previous installed/uninstalled drivers, so we're on the same page what has been installed. Connect ethernet once automatic driver installation setting is disabled, incase something from Microsoft is causing issues. Have chipset /lan/vga driver ready on usb stick just incase they're needed.

https://www.tenforums.com/installat...able-automatic-driver-installation-start.html

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-automatic-driver-updates-windows-10

Might do this in a week or so if all else fails. would rather not as its definitely a hassle but i can.

 

[Darkbreeze]

When trying to troubleshoot problems, there should not be ANY overclocking of anything happening. Memory can be at XMP profile, but not manually overclocked. NO CPU overclock. No GPU overclock. Overclocking, whether manually or by way of some form of utility, should be done only on otherwise stable, normal functioning systems. There is NO scenario where something isn't working properly that would call for an overclock as the fix EXCEPT in some cases in the past where a manual configuration of high speed memory or running four DIMMs required a minor CPU overclock to bolster the memory controller. That is the only scenario I can think of.

 

[bentheblobfish]

When trying to troubleshoot problems, there should not be ANY overclocking of anything happening. Memory can be at XMP profile, but not manually overclocked. NO CPU overclock. No GPU overclock. Overclocking, whether manually or by way of some form of utility, should be done only on otherwise stable, normal functioning systems. There is NO scenario where something isn't working properly that would call for an overclock as the fix EXCEPT in some cases in the past where a manual configuration of high speed memory or running four DIMMs required a minor CPU overclock to bolster the memory controller. That is the only scenario I can think of.

I was thinking maybe my PC simply didn't have enough performance, and that there was no real problem. Regardless, I think that the unstable higher frequencies could be meaningful to the discussion. Maybe problem is GPU or PSU not giving enough power, causing unstable frequencies or stutters?

Also note; any "tests" (anything i have written about on this forum that didnt explicitly mention overclocking) had no OC enabled.

 

[Colif]

given you replaced everything else in PC, the idea that its GPU or PSU isn't hard to agree with.

At higher frequencies, auto overclock tuner became unstable

Was that the OC Scanner? It seems its not very reliable. link

tbh I would have done this long ago (before I started replacing anything really) - take PC to repair store and ask them to swap another PSU or GPU in to see if it still happens. I don't mean replace them, just use spares to see if same stutter happens. Since you don't have spares, I have to think they would.

if it still happens? Could ask them to test everything.

 

[bentheblobfish]

given you replaced everything else in PC, the idea that its GPU or PSU isn't hard to agree with.

I agree. Might test a buddies gpu.

I took it to micro center for repair and they held it for 50+ days and couldnt do a thing. They said monitoring the PC to replicate symptoms was too time consuming.

 

[Colif]

Maybe you need a small shop. not a retail business. 50 days?? thats crazy.

All you need is someone who wants business. Not someone who only wants easy problems like "how can I fix my email" I had one problem I couldn't work out, dropped to a shop, they tested it for a few days and found nothing wrong. Oddly that actually helped narrow causes down.

But sitting on it for 50 days and saying its too hard... thanks guys.

Okay, swapping GPU is a start.

So I take it unplugging USB devices didn't help?

 

[bentheblobfish]

But sitting on it for 50 days and saying its too hard... thanks guys.

Thats what im saying. Could have told me that 50 days earlier. Even gave them a whole packet of work I did for them. Oh well, what can you do.

Maybe you need a small shop.

Might look around for a good one.

Okay, swapping GPU is a start.

Yep. Will hopefully get around to that soonish. If that has no fix, might try a new PSU, just to make certain its not that. If I do that and there is STILL no fix... I will have replaced every part of my computer. What a wild problem.

 

[Colif]

If I do that and there is STILL no fix... I will have replaced every part of my computer. What a wild problem.

Lets hope we can stop 1 part short of that

 

[bentheblobfish]

Lets hope we can stop 1 part short of that

Lets

Worried that I will be stuck with current GPU if it does end up being a GPU issue...The warranty has expired as it was only a year and I got it in November. Can't afford a $500 GPU either right now.

 

[bentheblobfish]

Also, VBios is at 90.04.86.40.11
Build date was 02-18-2020

 

[Colif]

2070 Super are rare now, Nvidia stopped making them before they announced the 30 series. So I want mine to last as long as possible too.

Also, VBios is at 90.04.86.40.11
Build date was 02-18-2020

Well, its newer than mine. Not sure where you get build date from?

Googles how to update firmware for 2070 Super, recoils at suggested answer... download a driver updater. Um, no. Just no.

I am not sure how you would get a newer one. Its not on the OEM website for GPU. Mine anyway.

I wouldn't think about it until we know what cause is.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I would definitely recommend trying a better PSU. The CX units were horrible back when they were 500w, 600w, etc. and the newer ones in both the Great wall and CWT flavors with more modern internals are better, but still not "premium" and there are still a few concerns on them not to mention even the best of the best can sometimes have issues.

 

[bentheblobfish]

2070 Super are rare now, Nvidia stopped making them before they announced the 30 series. So I want mine to last as long as possible too.



Well, its newer than mine. Not sure where you get build date from?

Googles how to update firmware for 2070 Super, recoils at suggested answer... download a driver updater. Um, no. Just no.

I am not sure how you would get a newer one. Its not on the OEM website for GPU. Mine anyway.

I wouldn't think about it until we know what cause is.

Build date was just another tab. I wont worry about Vbios

I would definitely recommend trying a better PSU. The CX units were horrible back when they were 500w, 600w, etc. and the newer ones in both the Great wall and CWT flavors with more modern internals are better, but still not "premium" and there are still a few concerns on them not to mention even the best of the best can sometimes have issues.

That will be the next thing I try if swapping GPU does nothing

 

[Darkbreeze]

Are you working on this IN the case or on the bench/countertop/table etc.?

I'd really recommend benching things and with minimal hardware attached. Literally, ONLY what is necessary to determine it is or is not still doing, whatever it's doing.

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