Stuttering in games

[B1GG5]

I just RMA'd my second gtx 280 and got a gtx 470 back from EVGA. My first 280 suffered from artifacting and its replacement suffered from the "pink screen of death". Around when i started getting the PSOD on my second 280, i started noticing that some of my games would have weird stuttering problems. I thought this was just another problem caused by the card going bad ,but it seems that the stuttering is still persistent with my 470. Crysis has the most stuttering out of all my games, but STALKER and Penumbra: Black Plague also have this issue.

My framerate will be very good in every game. Crysis will usually have around 40 fps (very high, 4xAA, 720p). The problem seems to happen whenever I move or look around in the game. I can't even sprint in a straight line without having several split-second hitches in the framerate.

I don't remember having this issue until recently. Updating my drivers didn't seem to do anything. I tried bringing my CPU back down to stock speeds but that didn't help either. I'm still not sure what is causing the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated!


i7 920 @ 3.0ghz
GTX 470 EVGA
Corsair 4gb DDR3 RAM @ 570mhz 9-9-9-24
EVGA x58 SLI LE
Seagate 500gb HD
Corsair TX750w PSU

 

[B1GG5]

Yes I m made sure it was disabled. I'm certain the problem is hard drive related though. If I turn my volume down all the way and listen to the HD while I game, every time there is a brief stutter my HD makes its reading click sound. Now I know this isn't coincidence lol

 

[B1GG5]

I guess what your talking about is the "ABQ6REFW IDE Controller" under Storage controllers. I don't see any report about speed in the properties of that under any of the tabs

 

[B1GG5]

I hate to double post but I could you please help walk me through this? I'm in dire need of help lol

 

[B1GG5]

Hey I found this thread after searching around for a while

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f15/solved-games-stutter-new-here-please-help-urgently-502862.html

This seems similar to the issue I'm having. Could reapplying thermal paste really fix this stuttering issue? I haven't reapplied since I built my pc so i guess this might be the issue.

 

[dgriffs]

Im no pc expert but its definitely a possibility. Are you using any programs to monitor cpu temp? If the thermal compound wears down or the heatsink/fan isn't mounted right the cpu can get too hot and can cause slow downs in game.

 

[B1GG5]

Ok cool. I'm definitely gonna reapply with some arctic silver 5 tonight or tomorrow. I keep you guys updated

 

[B1GG5]

Ok so I put some new thermal paste on my cpu and, while my temps have dropped a good 5 degrees on average or so, it did not fix the stuttering problem

I'm starting to think that I will never figure this out 🙁

Any more ideas? I'm still thinking it has to do with some settings for my HD or RAM

 

[Liu kang baking a pie]

try going in to "Manage 3D Settings" in NVidia Control Panel and setting "power management mode" to"Prefer Maximum Performance"

 

[B1GG5]

Yeah that didn't seem to help any. I've tried changing other settings such as "maximum pre-rendered frames" too but they don't seem to do anything either.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I see you're running a 920 with 4gig of ram was it ? Try running with only 3gigs...... or just 3 sticks of ram in the proper slots.

 

[B1GG5]

Ok. I've got a 2 x 2gb setup so I'll try using each one by itself and see if anything happens

 

[swifty_morgan]

That may be the problem. A tri channel board running 2 sticks. And you should be running memory that is 1.65 volts. Higher volt memory may cause problems.

 

[B1GG5]

Yeah they're at 1.65v right now. I know you cant go higher than that with an i7.
I kinda don't know what you mean by tri channel. Havent even heard of that before lol. Could you please explain what that is?
Also like I've said already this same rig has worked 100% fine before but I guess problems can occur over time as well.

 

[xambron]

I'm sure you have, but make sure your video drivers, any firmware, and games are up to date. You could defrag and see if anyone else is having a similar problem with your exact video card model.

 

[B1GG5]

Oh ok, tri channel as in having 6 total dimm slots. Yeah having 2 sticks should be no prob according to the manual.

yeah ive made sure to update everything. My games are on steam too so they're always up to date.

Testing each individual stick now

 

[swifty_morgan]

Tri channel is having dimms in 3 of the six slots..... tri-channel. The RIGHT 3 slots..... when running 3 dimms.

 

[B1GG5]

Ok yeah that's right swifty_morgan. I was off a bit haha. I do have them in the right slots though.

The problem persists with each stick of ram unfortunately so I'm fairly sure it's not a problem with one of them being bad or anything.

I'm going to try and mess with the timings a bit and see if that fixes anything

 

[swifty_morgan]

Try and disable start up programs. type msconfig in your search box.....start/search........... look under start up and services...... see what's running and temporarily disable stuff you don't really need. ( services.... check box at bottom to filter Microsoft stuff. Rest is stuff other than ). anti malware or virus scanners will have effects on system. as do other non assuming items.
disable auto updates and look in windows firewall to see what's running. cntl/alt/del will show running apps.

 

[B1GG5]

I tried everything you mentioned but nothing helped 🙁
I feel like it might be something in my bios. Not sure tho. Should I post some screens of my RAM settings and everything so you guys can make sure everything's is how it should?

 

[swifty_morgan]

You forgot to include "increase virtual ram".

 

[B1GG5]

Okay thats what I thought it was since it kinda "feels" that way ingame, like the resources just can't load fast enough.

I tried putting as much load on the gpu as I could. I'm mainly testing Penumbra: BP now since I was kinda in the middle of that game before all these problems came about. It is also one of my games with the most prominent stuttering in it. Anyways I forced 32x AA in it and that didn't seem to fix much.

I ran chkdsk and I don't think I got any errors on it. The window just closed on me without showing results. Im sure it made a results file somewhere I just don't know where.

I also defragged completely with Smart Defrag 2.

I ran 4 passes of memtest. No errors.

I increased my virtual ram to 12gbs. Im pretty sure i dont need THAT much lol, but it didn't seem to help anyways.


I'm still not entirely sure what you're talking about in the control panel. I can't find anything with that exact name. I found "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" which has "Intel(R) ICH10 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2" and "Intel(R) ICH10 Family 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1" under it. I'm not sure if these are the 2 controllers you are talking about or not.

 

[B1GG5]

Okay, after searching around a lot online I think I might have found the problem. It appears that a lot of other people are having similar problems with the 400 series cards. I think I saw that it is a driver issue or something. Could anyone validate this for me?

 

[cburke82]

Okay, after searching around a lot online I think I might have found the problem. It appears that a lot of other people are having similar problems with the 400 series cards. I think I saw that it is a driver issue or something. Could anyone validate this for me?

Like parking at a mall? lol

 

[B1GG5]

Hahaha no! XD I mean like does anyone know if the drivers for the 400 series cards are still messed up. Some of the forums I read were a little old. I'll go back and check..

 

[swifty_morgan]

Most people who complain about drivers either don't know what they are doing or don't know how to troubleshoot minor problems..... related or unrelated to video..... or don't have a decent power supply. I still think you have a memory problem. I'd dump that 1066 stuff and buy 3 sticks of proper memory for that system. Next step would be to take it to a shop and have a pro look at it. Somethings being missed.