Terrible Stuttering with R9 290 while gaming [FIXED]

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WolvesGoHowl

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FIX: I did a clean install on just the ssd with basic drivers and valley benchmark. Same stutters.
I removed ssd and did a clean install on the hdd. The stuttering was fixed.

Hello, I recently bought an Asus Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC. Was very excited to use this card only to my dismay that I would get massive frame drops every 30 seconds or so for a brief moment while playing games. These games being Battlefield 3, War Thunder and Planetside. Normally in these games I am getting 100+ fps. At first I thought it was a v-sync problem so I turned v-sync off. After doing so, the stutters disappeared for a few minutes but eventually they returned. I tried reinstalling video drivers, I checked for old video drivers that may have not been fully uninstalled, I tried optimizing pc performance in bios (which eventually led to a bsod. I think it tried to overclock), I also tried completely reinstalling the graphics card. Unfortunately none of these worked. At this point I am wondering if it could be a CPU, PSU, or even a hard drive problem. Before getting the 290 I was running off Intel the HD4600 iGpu. I don't recall having this stutter issue when I was using the iGPU, I was just getting low frames in general. Would I need to reinstall all drivers (Motherboard/WiFi) when switching to AMD? My system specs are below.

CPU: Intel i5 4670k (Non overclocked)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 1866 2x4gb
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Formula
GPU: Asus Radeon r9 290 DirectCU II OC 4gb
PSU: Corsair CX600M
SSD: PNY XLR8 120gb
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2tb Drive

My CPU has a stock cooler installed right now and the temps are fine while gaming. When stress testing they can get to 85C.

My GPU temps are also fine while playing. Sometimes they get into the 80s but I've heard this is normal for AMD cards. While playing BF3 they have been around 75C

I am considering RMA'ing the card with Amazon but I thought I should run it by here before making that decision.

If I am missing any information that could help solve this problem let me know. Thanks.

Nathan

edit: I was just monitoring CPU usage while playing Battlefield 3 and noticed it would spike from around 80% to 90% when stuttering. At one point it spiked to 99% for a long stutter. I also noticed my GPU spikes to 100% sometimes while gaming.

edit 2: I just read in http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/359692-33-stuttering-problem-games-hd6870-dual that it could be the cpu overheating or the psu not delivering enough voltage. Any thoughts on this?

EDIT 3: The stuttering is back, when I run Valley Benchmark it stutters every 30 seconds or so. I finally decided to check the hdd activity light while the bench mark was running. With every stutter the light blinks. I am guessing the ssd is at fault (I run windows from the ssd)?

 
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WolvesGoHowl

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Just got back from work. Played a game with 5% underclocked (950mhz) and another at 10% underclocked (900mhz). Same stuttering. Could it possibly be a cpu problem or a gpu problem? I notice when monitoring the cpu usage it spikes by about 10% whenever I get the fps stutter.
This also happens in War Thunder. CPU usage jumps from around 47% to 60% whenever a stutter happens.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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In battlefield it is around 75, sometimes a little higher.
In Tomb Raider it stays in the 60s. But with tomb raider the cpu usage actually dips down when stuttering.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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It is set to Balanced.

The ambient temperature isn't much above room temp. Is there a way to specifically monitor that other than just a thermometer in the case? It feels moderately warm coming from the exhaust fans but not too hot. I have plenty of air flow (4 intakes, 4 exhausts)
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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I took the side panel off and heard high pitched electrical type noises while gaming (I am assuming this is bad). Whenever the game would stutter the noise would pause for the duration of the stutter. At first I thought this was the power supply making the buzzing but upon further inspection, the noise was coming from the gpu. I don't think this is coil whine (doesn't sound like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP73edpQwgc). It sounds more like a fluorescent light bulb that is about to go out but with a higher pitch.

So far this is what the possible problems could be:
GPU: due to this noise and its synchronization with the stutters
CPU: due to the usage spikes (which as far as I know are from the game itself)
Drives: I am using a PNY drive which one user told me was the cause of his stuttering
PSU: Not enough voltage getting to the video card

Any thoughts? I am now leaning more toward a faulty GPU than anything else.

Thanks

Edit: I took the radeon 290 out and ran on intel's iGpu. I am no longer experiencing stuttering. I am now further considering doing an RMA on the card.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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I ran Battlefield 3 with task manager open along with RealTemp and Asus GPUTweaker. With each stutter the bf3.exe program spiked in cpu usage by about 7-13%. Along with the cpu spikes I noticed the GPU usage had dropped to zero during these freezes. This combined with the stuttering of the "GPU noise" leads me to believe my gpu is bad.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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The noise is just a very high pitched buzzing noise. Sounds very electric. I am planning on replacing it through amazon. The card is fairly new so I have another 20 days or so to replace/return it.
I will upload a video of the noise in the morning.
 
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Kari

Kari

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i'd say the noise really is coil whine from the gpus vrm section. It pauses when the gpu usage drops down because the power usage also drops simultaneously. btw the coil whine on that linustechtip video sounds really low pitched, maybe it's his mic, youtube or my speakers idk, but my old 5770 had a whine with a lot higher pitch to it (interestingly enough it seemed to quieten down over the years or my ears went bad lol ).

So I really wouldn't blame the card just because of the whine, it merely reacts to the load/power usage of the card...


you mentioned the pny drive, do you have the games on that drive as well or just windows? Would it be too much trouble to run everything from the 2tb seagate? (pull the ssd, fresh windows on the hdd with drivers and a game or 2?)
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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Here's a video I captured of the noise. The stutters happen around the 20 second mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auEiof4Mmcs

It actually sounds very similar to the buzz single coil guitar pickups make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNukTTdd2qE

As soon as I find an empty external drive to put all my files on I'll do a clean install of windows on the 2tb.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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Okay so it should be normal then. Another thing I've noticed while monitoring gpu usage during gameplay is that the usage jumps up and down from 0-10% all the way to 90-100% quite frequently. (http://puu.sh/9sqWr/d21e5480bc.jpg). The dips were not during menus but while playing normally.

Edit: I think I found a fix. Thank you for your help
About the CPU usage: I found out the spike in usage was not coming from another application but from the game itself. My hypothesis on this is the cpu is taking extra load momentarily to compensate for the gpu hiccupping.

The reason I don't think it is the ssd is because when I run on integrated graphics the hiccups disappear.

I've tried updating to AMD's beta drivers and using older drivers as well.

Edit: I think I found a fix. Thanks for your time and help.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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I think I found a fix. I installed a new CPU cooler (Corsair H105) and the cpu now runs around 25 degrees cooler. I also enabled the Frame Rate Control settings in Catalyst Control Center (http://puu.sh/9sLYB/d33282bc7a.png). Stuttering is now almost completely eliminated. I will update if the problem arises again.
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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The stuttering is back, when I run Valley Benchmark it stutters every 30 seconds or so. I finally decided to check the hdd activity light while the bench mark was running. With every stutter the light blinks. I am guessing the ssd is at fault (I run windows from the ssd)?
 
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Kari

Kari

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What kind of general file copy/write speeds are you getting on the drive?

You could test the ssd with HDtach, ATTO or some other benchmark
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hdtach.html
http://www.attotech.com/disk-benchmark/
Guru3d ssd review to give some reference
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ocz_vertex_3_20_ssd_benchmark_review_test,9.html

Hdtach claims to bypass the windows file system to test the drive, so if there's something wrong with the file system itself this won't show it...
 
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WolvesGoHowl

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I did a clean install on just the ssd with basic drivers and valley benchmark. Same stutters.
I removed ssd and did a clean install on the hdd. The stuttering was fixed.
Would there be anyway to repair the ssd or is it pretty much fubar?
 
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Progenitus

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I have a fix that works. I just purchased this identical card and am running into the same issue. I have narrowed it down and it only happens when the card runs >=93C, if you notice the stupid 'auto' function for the fan is terrible and maxes out around 58%. Set your fan speed to manual at around 70% or higher, keep it under 90C and the fps drops should go away. I want to try switching it into Uber mode and see if the auto fan speed is higher by default.
 
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urkertje345

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It might be that your GPU doesnt get enough juice, i got an R9 290 from asus as well and i first had this problem either.

You might wanna download asus GPU tweak and set your GPU voltage to around 1350 mV. This worked for me tho, playing bf4 maxed out with no stutters
 
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