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.

 

[Colif]

version number 2.8 = 7C95v28 dated 28 June 21 - https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B550M-PRO-VDH-WIFI/support#down-bios

2.8= SMBios version, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_BIOS

I been through this before with MSI boards, the BIOS reports SMBios number. Not actual BIOS code.

So the system has a date 6 days before, I still thinks its same.

I already suggested BIOS update, he did a month ago already. Worth a try I guess

@bentheblobfish I took speccy link out as it shared some info you probably didn't want shared.

 

[boju]

Hmm ok so system management hasn't changed since bios he updated to and probably grabbed the 28th of June version which UB probably read date tag somewhere as 22nd. Another thing UB isn't reliable for lol.

Has latest chipset driver from Amd been suggested?

 

[Colif]

there is a newer bios on motherboard site, I wouldn't get Beta though - https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B550M-PRO-VDH-WIFI/support#down-bios
Do you have newest chipset drivers? https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

my 1st post

 

[Colif]

i don't think its software. He on 2nd install of windows on almost 2nd version of every hardware part.

i would suggest running Ubuntu live usb just to get 2nd opinion but you can't really play games off a USB - https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview

does it stutter in safe mode?

1. go to settings/update & security/recovery
   
2. under advanced startup, click restart now button
   
3. this restarts PC in a blue menu
   
4. choose troubleshoot
   
5. choose advanced
   
6. choose startup options
   
7. click the restart button
   
8. choose a safe mode (it doesn't matter which) by using number associated with it.
   
9. Pc will restart and load safe mode
   

 

[Colif]

Hmm ok so system management hasn't changed since bios he updated to and probably grabbed the 28th of June version which UB probably read date tag somewhere as 22nd. Another thing UB isn't reliable for lol.

its also possible speccy looking in wrong place
its reporting SMBios value, not BIOS Version/date value.

 

[boju]

Chugging at login screen could be a clue. Try above suggestions.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I just realized you had the Pro VDH board. This very well might be your problem in a nutshell. Seems like to me that practically every thread I can recall working on in the last 7 years here that involved any flavor of HDV and Pro-VDH motherboard ended up being a motherboard problem in the end. These boards are pure junk. Not "ASRock" specifically, just mostly the HDV and Pro-VDH boards.

This article, showing the B660M HDV is junk, also references the prior Gens review of the B560M HDV which also was junk and in fact failed to even meet minimum specifications in many area of testing. Without spending too much time looking for them I'm sure you can find a plethora of examples of bad reviews and performance issues with Pro-VDH and HDV motherboards, and considering for any given chipset they are USUALLY the least expensive board models at launch it's not that surprising really. Now, I'm not saying that FOR SURE this is your problem, but I think in light of the preponderance of evidence against these boards, the fact that they come with horrifically bad VRM configurations and the fact that VRM problems often are the main culprit in a lot of cases where stuttering is an issue due to thermal throttling or other VRM related conditions, it's something you had better seriously consider as a potential cause of your problems.

From what I've seen, and know, the Pro-VDH boards are not AS bad as the HDV boards, but they are typically really not very good and although the TH mini-review of your board says they ran a Ryzen 9 on it without any issues I find that hard to believe considering it has only a 4+1+1 power phase configuration for the VRMs. If you are running PBO especially, this is likely a serous recipe for VRM throttling on such a weak configuration.

Personally, I'd highly recommend you get a better board and THEN if you still have any issues, try to sort them out, because otherwise you might simply be wasting your time trying to find a problem that is nothing more than poor quality hardware.

By all means, I'd try the BIOS update first and if you can find another answer to solve the problem that's great, but at least keep this in mind so that if you run out of options you still have one left.

 

[bentheblobfish]

@bentheblobfish I took speccy link out as it shared some info you probably didn't want shared.

Saw this. thank you

i would suggest running Ubuntu live usb just to get 2nd opinion but you can't really play games off a USB - https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows#1-overview

does it stutter in safe mode?

I have a spare NVME SSD i will try linux with sometime this week; no time tonight probably
I will also try safe mode at home tonight.

I just realized you had the Pro VDH board. This very well might be your problem in a nutshell.

Id agree, but i already tried swapping it with the B550M-A Prime by asus. I will update bios again tonight, and will try disabling PBO (might be on, but not sure).

 

[Darkbreeze]

When you swapped it out for the B550M-A, did you then do a full clean install of Windows? Because from board to board we're talking about entirely different onboard hardware and a large portion of the time you simply can't just swap boards and not have issues, even when it is the same generation and chipset. Do you still have the B550M-A or did you return it? Because if you still have it, I'd keep it and use it rather than the Pro-VDH. Maybe keep that other board as a backup or if you can, return it. I don't know how long you've had this system built or in use so no idea on that.

Are you runnning the stock CPU cooler? What case do you have, how many case fans, where are they located and in which orientation (Intake or exhaust) is each fan for each location.

The B550M-A doesn't have terrific VRMs either, although better for sure than the boards I mentioned earlier, but with only a Ryzen 3600 they should be plenty but a lack of airflow could be a consideration as well and since most people only look at GPU and CPU core temperatures when monitoring thermals the VRM temperatures usually get ignored which is unfortunate because this is where the majority of problems come from on low end boards or when using very high TDP processors.

Also would be helpful to know a little more about the memory. Looks like you have four DIMMs installed. Are they all the same model? Did they all come in a SINGLE kit, or separate kits, regardless of whether they are the same model or not?

Since "loading" and "booting up a game" are generally drive intensive processes, we might want to also take a closer look at potential storage issues. Do you have the Samsung NVME driver installed or are you using the native Windows NVME driver?

Have you tried disconnecting the HDD completely to see if perhaps the problem is related to that? Tried a different SATA header? Case airflow could again be an issue as well if your NVME drive doesn't have a heatsink or direct airflow across it to help keep it cool, although this is a much less probable issue as we're not talking about writing or moving very large sequential files which is when these drives usually tend to get hot and throttle.

Did you go to the AMD website and download the latest B550 chipset drivers and install them?

And to the motherboard product page to download the latest audio chipset driver and network adapter drivers, and install those?

If not, I'd do that after you update the BIOS.

 

[bentheblobfish]

When you swapped it out for the B550M-A, did you then do a full clean install of Windows? Because from board to board we're talking about entirely different onboard hardware and a large portion of the time you simply can't just swap boards and not have issues, even when it is the same generation and chipset. Do you still have the B550M-A or did you return it? Because if you still have it, I'd keep it and use it rather than the Pro-VDH. Maybe keep that other board as a backup or if you can, return it. I don't know how long you've had this system built or in use so no idea on that.

Are you runnning the stock CPU cooler? What case do you have, how many case fans, where are they located and in which orientation (Intake or exhaust) is each fan for each location.

The B550M-A doesn't have terrific VRMs either, although better for sure than the boards I mentioned earlier, but with only a Ryzen 3600 they should be plenty but a lack of airflow could be a consideration as well and since most people only look at GPU and CPU core temperatures when monitoring thermals the VRM temperatures usually get ignored which is unfortunate because this is where the majority of problems come from on low end boards or when using very high TDP processors.

Also would be helpful to know a little more about the memory. Looks like you have four DIMMs installed. Are they all the same model? Did they all come in a SINGLE kit, or separate kits, regardless of whether they are the same model or not?

Since "loading" and "booting up a game" are generally drive intensive processes, we might want to also take a closer look at potential storage issues. Do you have the Samsung NVME driver installed or are you using the native Windows NVME driver?

Have you tried disconnecting the HDD completely to see if perhaps the problem is related to that? Tried a different SATA header? Case airflow could again be an issue as well if your NVME drive doesn't have a heatsink or direct airflow across it to help keep it cool, although this is a much less probable issue as we're not talking about writing or moving very large sequential files which is when these drives usually tend to get hot and throttle.

Did you go to the AMD website and download the latest B550 chipset drivers and install them?

And to the motherboard product page to download the latest audio chipset driver and network adapter drivers, and install those?

If not, I'd do that after you update the BIOS.

I did not do a full windows reinstallation when switching motherboards. Could that have caused a false negative fix?

I already returned the Asus. Have had the PRO-VDH about 15 months (late last november). I only started having these issues maybe 6 months ago, but they seem to have gotten worse.

I am using stock cooler with 5 fans - 2 intake front of case, one intake top of case, one exhaust top of case, one exhaust back of case. This is in the masterbox MB311L. I actually just bought a replacement one because the glass broke (was trying to replace a part, i believe it was when i replaced the CPU lol) and it came with 2 more fans. I think i can fit at least one on the front so i might install that, and then flip the intake top fan so I have 3 intake on front, 2 exhaust top, 1 exhaust back.

I do have 4 DIMMs. 2x8 Crucial Ballistix, 2x8 Teamgroup t-force vulkan-z. both 3200mhz. cl16 i believe. I got the Crucial ram as a replacement to test if the ram was the issue. I tested system with both sets individually in slots 2 and 4, as well as with each stick individually. No change in any configuration. I currently have them all plugged in until i get around to returning the crucial, because why not haha.

I currently just have the windows default NVME driver installed i believe. I will install the samsung driver.

Stutter persists when HDD is not plugged in at all, with any cable.

Motherboard has built in heatsync for NVME

I do have the latest chipset drivers.

Have already installed latest audio and network adapter drivers in the MSI software. i forget what its called but it updated like 5-10 drivers.

 

[bentheblobfish]

2 things I want to mention that I may have mentioned before or hinted at but not explicitly said.
1 - This happened after having the PC for probably 7-8 months. I had changed nothing in hardware configuration for that entire 8 months, besides an RMA'ed GPU. Maybe a software change that I cant remember. But because its been getting much worse, leads me to think hardware, especially because of the rigorous software testing I have done.

2 - the PSU (Corsair CX650W) has a daisy-chained GPU cord. could / would this be the root cause?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, let's address something right away. Your fan configuration is not right.

For tower style cases, like yours, and like 95% of the cases in use out there today, front, bottom and side fans should ALWAYS be configured as intake, no exceptions. Top and rear fans should ALWAYS be configured as exhaust. No exceptions. Any exceptions to that rule will be counterproductive and likely to do nothing more than create a turbulent mix of hot and cool air inside the case that becomes mostly trapped and unable to efficiently provide a stable air path into and out of the case. If you are unfamiliar you should familiarize yourself with the nuances of "stack effect".

https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/Heat-Rises-and-Falls-Stack-Effect-Air-Movement-Heat-Flow

Extensive testing has been done in all manner of cases, with all manner of fans and all manner of configurations and THIS is the correct and most efficient method of case cooling fan configuration without exception for cases that do not have specialty or niche designs.

I would recommend that you remove the fan in the top of the case that is configured as an intake fan and move it to the front as a third intake there, leaving one fan in the TOP-rear location as an exhaust and one fan in the REAR location as an exhaust. So that means three front intakes, one top rear exhaust and one rear exhaust. This will eliminate the problem with swirl you are creating by having a top intake fan which is directly apposing the efficient air path that would otherwise exist.

I do have 4 DIMMs. 2x8 Crucial Ballistix, 2x8 Teamgroup t-force vulkan-z. both 3200mhz. cl16 i believe. I got the Crucial ram as a replacement to test if the ram was the issue. I tested system with both sets individually in slots 2 and 4, as well as with each stick individually. No change in any configuration. I currently have them all plugged in until i get around to returning the crucial, because why not haha.

Why not is because they are dissimilar memory kits and might contribute to or cause problems. I'd stick to just one kit for now unless you plan to keep both kits in which case you will want to run a full four passes of Memtest86 with both kits installed to ensure there are no instabilities or errors from, one, having four DIMMs installed and, two, having two dissimilar memory kits installed.

Please help yourself by reading this.

How To - Troubleshooting problems with PC memory (RAM) and XMP profile configurations

In the beginning, there was......BIOS Before you go ANY further, go to the manufacturer product page for your specific motherboard model AND revision. Revision is an important aspect because for any given motherboard there may be more than one version of that model which will be identified...

forums.tomshardware.com

Have already installed latest audio and network adapter drivers in the MSI software. i forget what its called but it updated like 5-10 drivers.

Those software utilities sometimes cause more problems than they fix. If possible, at least temporarily, I would uninstall any MSI software that isn't 100% required for special features like lighting, etc., and see how it does, AND I would go to the AMD website and manually update the chipset driver and then manually go to the product page and manually update the audio and network adapter drivers. We've seen time and time again that these automatic updating utilities are often wrong and not doing what they are supposed to do. Ask anybody around here or on most forums, and they'll tell you the same thing IF they have much experience in these matters.

 

[bentheblobfish]

would recommend that you remove the fan in the top of the case that is configured as an intake fan and move it to the front as a third intake there, leaving one fan in the TOP-rear location as an exhaust and one fan in the REAR location as an exhaust. So that means three front intakes, one top rear exhaust and one rear exhaust. This will eliminate the problem with swirl you are creating by having a top intake fan which is directly apposing t

Done.

Why not is because they are dissimilar memory kits and might contribute to or cause problems. I'd stick to just one kit for now unless you plan to keep both kits in which case you will want to run a full four passes of Memtest86 with both kits installed to ensure there are no instabilities or errors from, one, having four DIMMs installed and, two, having two dissimilar memory kits installed.

Ok, took out the new one that I plan on returning. Thanks for information

Those software utilities sometimes cause more problems than they fix. If possible, at least temporarily, I would uninstall any MSI software that isn't 100% required for special features like lighting, etc., and see how it does, AND I would go to the AMD website and manually update the chipset driver and then manually go to the product page and manually update the audio and network adapter drivers. We've seen time and time again that these automatic updating utilities are often wrong and not doing what they are supposed to do. Ask anybody around here or on most forums, and they'll tell you the same thing IF they have much experience in these matters.

Uninstalled program, installed drivers. no change.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, can you download Harddisk sentinel and install it, then run it, then click on each of your drives one at a time and see what it says about each drive and it's health?

 

[bentheblobfish]

does it stutter in safe mode?

I spent the last 25 mins trying to boot a game in safe mode. The only one I could launch without something disabled in safe mode was Control, which ran at 1FPS max. Guessing safe mode disables video drivers. So I cant really tell you unless im missing something.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, game ready drivers are disabled in safe mode and basic universal vanilla drivers are used.

 

[bentheblobfish]

So, can you download Harddisk sentinel and install it, then run it, then click on each of your drives one at a time and see what it says about each drive and it's health?

The status of the solid state disk is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found.
The health is determined by SSD specific S.M.A.R.T. attribute(s): Available Spare (Percent), Percentage Used
The TRIM feature of the SSD is supported and enabled for optimal performance.

The hard disk status is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found and there are no spin up or data transfer errors.

Both at 100% health.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok. So one at a time, I would click on the SSD, then in the menu options choose the quick self test and run it. DO the same for the HDD afterwards. See what the results are. Then do the same thing but choose the long/extended test. The long test WILL usually take a fairly long time to complete. With a large HDD it might take an hour or more.

 

[bentheblobfish]

Ok. So one at a time, I would click on the SSD, then in the menu options choose the quick self test and run it. DO the same for the HDD afterwards. See what the results are. Then do the same thing but choose the long/extended test. The long test WILL usually take a fairly long time to complete. With a large HDD it might take an hour or more.

Short test on both showed no problems found. Can I do the extended test on multiple drives so I can leave overnight?

EDIT: Cant do extended. Needs to be registered and licensed, and id probably rather not pay the $20 unless you think its 100% worth it.

 

[Colif]

I did not do a full windows reinstallation when switching motherboards. Could that have caused a false negative fix?

When you told me you had used 2 different ssd I assumed it was on same motherboard

have you done one on current setup? I would do that before trying to figure anything out now.

 

[bentheblobfish]

When you told me you had used 2 different ssd I assumed it was on same motherboard

have you done one on current setup? I would do that before trying to figure anything out now.

Yes. I have reinstalled windows on current setup. You were right to assume both SSDs were installed on the same system.

I was careful to only switch one component at a time to isolate the issue.

 

[Colif]

oh good, I thought I had missed an obvious reason.

Stutter persists when HDD is not plugged in at all, with any cable.

Well, I don't think its worth running extended tests on HDD if PC still stutters with it unplugged.
The Samsung Magician software can run the same Extended tests as HD Sentinel probably runs, I assume it checks SMART. Magician has an entire tab for that.

The status of the solid state disk is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found.
The health is determined by SSD specific S.M.A.R.T. attribute(s): Available Spare (Percent), Percentage Used
The TRIM feature of the SSD is supported and enabled for optimal performance.

you missed one line.
Under that paragraph it would have said
No actions Needed.

so scanning it further might not reveal a lot.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Right. Probably not worth worrying about, however, for future reference, as Colif said, but also both Western digital lifeguard tools and Seatools for Windows will do all of the tests, and cost nothing, so you can do that at some point if you want. I have seen plenty of drives in the past that looked fine on the short test but failed the long or extended test. I don't think that is what is going on here though so I agree you can probably just skip past this.

 

[bentheblobfish]

you missed one line.
Under that paragraph it would have said
No actions Needed.

Believe I missed this line when i copied it. It did say no actions needed.

Any next steps?

 

[Colif]

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

2 - the PSU (Corsair CX650W) has a daisy-chained GPU cord. could / would this be the root cause?

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.