Discussion Troubleshooting system-wide stuttering/jittering?

[pevsfreedom]

Hi

I'm trying to troubleshoot an ongoing issue with my PC that we have hooked up to our living room TV. We only use it for streaming video online.

Basically what happens, and it's very intermittent, is that the system seems like the RAM is freezing up or something, and it will get such intense jittering/stuttering, that using the computer becomes impossible. Videos will do this, and if we close the browser, the cursor does it, everything does it. Sometimes it goes away after a few minutes, other times the only way we can fix it is by restarting. Sometimes it will do it 3 times in an hour (3 restarts), and others it'll go for days without it happening.

I've tried 2 things:

1) Fresh install of Windows - nothing.
2) New 16gb of RAM - nothing.

I really was absolutely positive one of those 2 things would have fixed it, and now I'm stumped.

I have a video - it's hard to see almost. If you look at his hands you can really see it. Audio doesn't seem affected. The mouse cursor also really gets going like we have that old mouse-cursor drag setting going on, which we don't. The whole thing becomes a jittering/stuttering (I can't put a word on it) unusable mess.

20231205_234016

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Specs:

UserBenchmarks: Game 16%, Desk 81%, Work 15%
CPU: Intel Core i3-10100 - 83.6%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 650 - 8.8%
SSD: Seagate BarraCuda Q1 SSD ZA480CV10001 480GB - 88.1%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB - 94.2%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 82.2%
MBD: Asus PRIME H470M-PLUS

 

[punkncat]

Just on a hunch, remove the GTX 650 and run from the integrated graphics and see how it does.

Check your HDD for errors and health.

Do you notice anything thing else, like perhaps the fans ramping up on the machine when this happens? Are you monitoring temps and usage such as with Task Manager to see if your CPU is heavily utilized when this occurs?

Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to run Memtest either.

 

[pevsfreedom]

I was thinking the same with the GTX and it's the last thing I can think of - that thing is a bit of a dinosaur. I'll try that.

The only reason I left it in was because the benchmark dropped using the onboard graphics, though... I doubt that would affect anything nearly as bad as what I have going on now. I've not actually left it plugged into the onboard graphics to see if it eliminates it.

HDD is good, the system is installed on the solid state, which is also good/relatively new. I do not notice anything else. The temp stays fine, the fans are fine.

The only thing open on the PC when this happens is a VPN, anti virus, browser, and whatever system stuff is going. I've tried checking RAM usage when it happens and it doesn't seem like anything pops out when it is happening -- even if I close everything and restart explorer it continues until a full restart.

I will add this happened after a cross-country move, where I (know) the computer got banged around significantly, though I'm hoping it's just the graphics card!

I'm not familiar with memtest though I'll check that out. With the old 8gb of ram I had in there it was benchmarking terribly (no name brand) and also at about 60% just running normal tasks, so I really thought new Corsair 16gb of ram would have cleared things up.

Not sure if this is useful at all, but the benchmark with integrated:

 

[punkncat]

If it got banged around a bit, it may also not be a bad idea to go in and check every connection from the PSU, RAM really just anything that could come loose a bit to make sure it is securely plugged in.

The 650 is old enough now that driver support has even dropped. In the realm of inexpensive but still supported GPU are the 750 ti which can be picked up for nearly nothing nowadays and which also should have stronger performance for (such as) 1080 viewing. I used one in my HTPC rig for years as it did a fine job with 1080/60 viewing of movies and such. The 10100 you have would actually work well with cards higher line than that even, but really comes down to what you want to do with this machine and budget.

edit- I will say, I use a 10105 in my work PC here at the home office and it does fine on most YT videos and such, so long as I leave it in the default view. Anything with a decent bit/frame-rate tends to stutter a bit on full screen, but nothing like the severity you mention.

 

[punkncat]

I couldn't help but notice your avatar. Are you related to Pev's Paintball?

I played a whole bunch of paintball up until last year. Although I never made it up to Pev's to play, I am familiar with the place. I have played at quite a few of the venues in the SE and even up the coast as far as Maryland. Did several tournaments over the years with CFOA and GFOA. Always good to see someone working the snake.

 

[pevsfreedom]

Well that was weird. I pulled out the PC and removed the graphics card and I must have jostled something as with it out the system wouldn't load up.. did some pushing in of cables and it loaded fine. The onboard display is pretty choppy, even from moving the cursor around. This may run better for video though and help troubleshoot the graphics card.

I'll definitely get in there and make sure everything's plugged in tight, especially from just moving it around to pull the gfx card got something unplugged. The CPU may or may not have taken a 10 foot dive out of the attic right before we moved...

I didn't realize the 650 was that old.. I've rebuilt this thing 2-3 times since I adopted it from my wife.

I'm not sure if I even need a graphics card for what I'm using it for? Online/offline video streaming at 4k? I put the 650 in there just because I had it at the time.

I couldn't help but notice your avatar. Are you related to Pev's Paintball?

I played a whole bunch of paintball up until last year. Although I never made it up to Pev's to play, I am familiar with the place. I have played at quite a few of the venues in the SE and even up the coast as far as Maryland. Did several tournaments over the years with CFOA and GFOA. Always good to see someone working the snake.

Lol. Long story. I got a PEVS edition Ego (Planet Eclipse) in 2006 from saving up, working at a field, and was pretty proud of it. So I stole the Pevs moniker around that time and added freedom, because America, and became Pevsfreedom. I've never played at Pevs, but I've had the name for.. 17 years? Which is about how long I played paintball (from 5-25 or so). I grew up in SoCal, played my whole life up until a point. I used to play NPPL and a bunch of west coast leagues - played semi pro NPPL back when paintball was a lot bigger

Super sweet memories - I miss it a lot. Haven't played in at least 7 years. Still got a 2007 Ego hanging in the garage - I did get rid of the 2006 Pevs. Glad you recognized my name/avatar The avatar is from some magazine shot from some tournament. I used to own a field with the family for a year or so (~2011) before life stuff but definitely fond memories. I could play snake real well, though I was mainly the dorito guy I quit mostly from moving away from home (military) and half of the fun was the people I knew forever, but it's been so long.. I'd love to get a pump and go play some woodsball one of these days. Nice to meet ya.

 

[punkncat]

Taking this WAY off course for a PC forum...

I started playing something around 98. Within a couple of years I was playing with large teams in woodsball tournaments and 48 hour scenarios and such. I have gone to a lot of the big name scenarios of people that I cannot even recall any more. Black Cat comes to mind, I would have to go and dig out some patches.
A little further down the road of time and I played 5 man X ball and similar events. I never really liked playing more than 5 man because I couldn't keep track of more than that off the break. You well know, losing track of the guy that went to the corner is a great way to walk to the dead box.

A couple of my favorite later play markers were PE. I really liked the Geo better than the "Matrix" and IMO the LV was one of the best markers ever made from a performance and reliability standpoint in that class. I was always into mechs as well and really liked cockers and automags. One of the last markers I had was a pneumag that was as quick as anything with a battery. My all time favorite platform is the Angel G7.

I went on to play semi-pro ball D3 and D2, sponsored for paint and entry by a local field and a shop at one point. We had deals with Dye, and a much better deal later on with Planet Eclipse. Pro Ball supplied us (well technically the field) with paint, covered entry, so all we had to do was pay for gas, travel, and a hotel room. One of our teammates father worked for Hilton, so we got the hook up on rooms as well. Great memories, and I miss it as well. Nowhere else that you can walk onto a field, murder a handful of people and then talk with them about it afterward.

Apologies for the huge derail.


As to your system, I think it a bit odd that it would still have issue without the GPU in place. Just for giggles, pull the power or SATA cable for the HDD and see if the stutter goes away. I had a very similar issue with a system and a disk drive going bad and honestly came across the fix by mistake as a result of breadboarding the system. Where I don't feel like this is a PSU issue, you don't mention what is in the PC.

Do you still have the UBM link you can post?

 

[pevsfreedom]

I'll shoot you a message no pun intended about paintball

Alright.. I got it all working. Kind of a pain as it's behind the TV, and the case is all messed up.

To clarify: When I said it's choppy it is not the same problem, or really a problem at all. The cursor just moves kind of laggy. It hasn't "jittered/stuttered" so far. The cursor and stuff like that just moves around a lot laggier looking, but video is playing fine.

Benchmarks:

This was the old one with the 650:

Please click the green human to continue - UserBenchmark

New one with integrated (current):

Please click the green human to continue - UserBenchmark

I don't know why the 2nd (current) is saying XMP isn't enabled and the RAM dropped, I have it set exactly the same. My thought it since it's running onboard graphics it's slowing the RAM down.

It hasn't displayed the stutter/jitter issue (yet). It's extremely intermittent and impossible to replicate. I'd go 5 days without it at all, and other times I'd have to restart 5 times in one day.

When I pulled the card I loosened something and it couldn't detect either hard drive. Was weird. But I guess I fixed whatever that was as it's running again.

So I'm hoping with the integrated graphics it doesn't have any issues and I'll know what the problem was (the 650)! It is running fine so far.

 

[punkncat]

Something else to consider with the choppy mouse action. Get a USB extension and place the dongle for the mouse in clear line of sight to your sitting position. (I make assumption that if you get closer to the PC this issue resolves)

I use one of the K series Logitech keyboards with the touchpad. It will act screwy if (for instance) I have a blanket in my lap somewhat blocking line of sight to the dongle and it will skip and so forth. I sit right near the edge of range for this unit.

I found a similar issue with my Xbox controller. The PC sits so low that with my feet kicked out it would act squirrely. I put the dongle for it on an extension and raised it up one shelf, sort of wedged into the crack to be a bit higher and solved that issue as well.