Systemwide Audio/Video Stuttering When Streaming/Downloading

[Victor_VI]

As the title suggests I am having an issue in which I get gradually increasingly severe audio/video stuttering when using the streaming video or downloading.

For clarity:
The issue I'm having affects all video and audio output. It even affects mouse responsiveness after it's been occurring for a while. However, I am able to temporarily fix the issue by either resetting my modem or disabling and re-enabling my network driver via the device manager.

Initially, this issue began occurring about two months ago with my Windows 7 Pro installation, which had been operating with little issues for ~5 years. I went through numerous potential fixes - listed below - with no improvement. These issues coincided with a persistent issue with being unable to install windows updates, so I began to think that the two were linked. After numerous attempts to fix both issues I decided to upgrade to 10 to see if that would resolve the problem. The installation of 10 work with no issues, and in doing so the update issue was resolved. I am now able to get updates without issue, but the audio and video stuttering remain.

I upgraded my board/cpu/memory - I intended to do it anyway, and the issue provided a spur.
-- Just to be clear...

>THE ISSUE OCCURRED PRIOR TO UPDATING THE HARDWARE<
>THE ISSUE OCCURRED PRIOR TO UPDATING THE HARDWARE<
>THE ISSUE OCCURRED PRIOR TO UPDATING THE HARDWARE<

... Sorry about the caps, but I'm expecting some nob to get hung up on the hardware change as the cause despite the fact that the issue was the spur that made me go ahead with the upgrade instead of waiting some more.

I've been working on the premise that it's a driver conflict, and have gone through numerous potential fixes including the following:

- Clean removal of my network, video, and audio drivers.
- Installation of latest iterations of the aforementioned drivers from the hardware manufacturer's sites.

- Updated to Windows 10 and redid the first two steps.

- Attempted to discern if another connection was causing the issue by removing peripherals one at a time and testing. no change outside of modem.

- Got a new modem - no change

- purchased a network controller card, installed and updated to latest drivers - disabled onboard network controller via device manager, and uninstalled those network drivers. Problem reoccurred.

There are likely some other steps I took, but I'm tired at the moment, and will have to return to elaborate more on the steps I've taken.

Oh! Just for the record:
SOP was done several times throughout:
I.e. Updated virus scanner - full scan, rootkit scan, quick scan - all clean
Malwarebytes fully updated - all scans - all clean
CCleaner full clean - no issues
Defraggler - all relevant disk drives run
SFC run - no issues
Checkdisk run - no issues

I even did a memtest86 run because I was in that mindset - no issues.

No apparent hardware issues.

Honestly, the only thing I can think is that there's either a driver conflict that's popped up, and I've missed it, or maybe wires?... I don't know...

Thanks in advance for any help!


Update: It appears that moving the pagefile from my primary storage disk to the secondary storage disk resolved the issue.
Thank you, Solandri.

Update 2: Still occurring, the severity is enormously diminished however.

 

[popatim]

I would suggest reinstalling 10 fresh, whatever conflict there is seems to have been carried over from 7. Perform a full backup first in case it does not resolve the issue and then you can be right back to where you left off.

 

[tsnor]

Stutter streaming. I was expecting this to be about your ISP, not your PC.

Run some 'speed tests' and check your download speed. Especially when you are having problems.

 

[Victor_VI]

"Stutter streaming. I was expecting this to be about your ISP, not your PC."

My connection is fine...

It's not "Stutter streaming", it's systemwide stuttering affecting all video and audio playback irrespective of what utility is used for the playback - I.e. A .wmv file played on VLC/Divx/whatever will have audio stuttering and video lag if I'm downloading something at the same time - and also including mouse movement while either downloading or loading a page.

----

"I would suggest reinstalling 10 fresh, whatever conflict there is seems to have been carried over from 7. Perform a full backup first in case it does not resolve the issue and then you can be right back to where you left off."

I'm saving that for last ditch... I've had this machine up and running for ~5 years, so I'll probably wind up having to, but it's going to be a pain getting things set up the way I want them again. I'm hoping for someone with fresh eyes to see a potential solution that I missed.

 

[Solandri]

The fact that the mouse is also freezing means the stutter is happening at a pretty low level in Windows - even when the computer hangs you can usually still move the mouse cursor. What's your GPU setup like and what SSDs/HDDs do you have? Except for one case of stuttering like this which I tracked down to Intel's Proset network software (not the network drivers, the unnecessary network management software), and another case where the motherboard chipset drivers hadn't installed properly, all other cases where I've seen this have been related to graphics drivers, or hard drives going to sleep or parking their heads.

Did you change/upgrade video cards since you first installed Windows 7?

Do you have a pagefile on any HDDs (particularly the WD green drives or 2.5" WD drives)? Or are the downloads being saved to a HDD (check that write cache is enabled)?

 

[Victor_VI]

The fact that the mouse is also freezing means the stutter is happening at a pretty low level in Windows - even when the computer hangs you can usually still move the mouse cursor. What's your GPU setup like and what SSDs/HDDs do you have? Except for one case of stuttering like this which I tracked down to Intel's Proset network software (not the network drivers, the unnecessary network management software), and another case where the motherboard chipset drivers hadn't installed properly, all other cases where I've seen this have been related to graphics drivers, or hard drives going to sleep or parking their heads.

Did you change/upgrade video cards since you first installed Windows 7?

Do you have a pagefile on any HDDs (particularly the WD green drives or 2.5" WD drives)? Or are the downloads being saved to a HDD (check that write cache is enabled)?

OK! I'll do this as a list so that I don't miss anything and don't get things jumbled.

GPU:
Since building this machine I've changed cards approx. 3 times. Each time I've done clean install, and downloaded drivers directly from the manufacturer's site. The first card is actually cards; Those being two ASUS GTX 560's in SLI. The second was a single EVGA GTX 680. The current is an EVGA GTX 970. I still have the 680 and tried that with a clean install during my troubleshooting.

Edit: I believe that I might have purchased an AMD graphics card prior to getting the 680. I can't remember if that was prior to the 560's in my previous build though, as I've never liked the way catalyst acts, so didn't keep it.

SSD/HDD:
I currently have a solid state that contains only windows, and two internal HDD's for storage. The HDD's are a Western Digital Black, and an HGST Ultrastar. During my initial setup of the machine, I redirected downloads and documents onto the Western Digital. I also have the pagefile set on a small partition on the WD. Both internal disk drives have write caching enabled.

- While I don't think it's relevant, I think it's fair to mention that I replaced both internal storage drives about a year ago - the WD to replace a Seagate that was failing, and the HGST for more space. They were cloned and tested on a separate system before swapping them out. This was well before the issue began occurring, however.

Software:
I've been pretty hostile towards start up programs. I try to make sure that the ones which I keep are either necessary or are wanted by me, but I'm by no means an expert, so I very well might have missed something. I don't have the network management software installed. I did have intel rapid storage software, but it appears that I either uninstalled it, or it was removed during the port to 10. Apart from that I do have ASUS' ROG audio software installed, but that was installed post board upgrade, so wouldn't have affected the prior problem. None of my other start up programs pertain to networking, audio, or video control.

Could it be the pagefile? Should I task the pagefile to my secondary storage drive?

Edit: Your question regarding the pagefile prompted me to try changing the pagefile to my secondary storage HDD. After doing this I immediately went through and started opening browser pages, and downloading a couple of unimportant, but relatively large files while playing music through winamp - actions that would always cause at least some small measure of stuttering. Since the switch I haven't experienced any stuttering. I believe I know why - I have custom icons and customized mouse pointers + modded taskbar, all of the resources for which are located on my primary storage disk - but this is just speculative.

Either way, it appears to be resolved, if not I will repost.