CPU drops while gaming, causes major FPS drops/stutters (goes down to <5 for 1-5 seconds).

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Brakkus

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I'm not sure if reposting is allowed on these forums, but thought I might as well give it a try.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2721284/cpu-drops-gaming-major-fps-drops-seconds.html#xtor=EPR-8809

I made that thread asking for help in the CPU section of these forums. It has a lot of information on what I have and what I've tried to do to fix these issues. If you have any questions, or if you want me to repost some of the stuff I had in the other thread I'm more than willing. I just want to get my computer fixed!
 
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Do you have a wireless network adapter you could try out on your desktop? Also have you updated windows lately? I'm happy to help, but unfortunately I'm a little stumped at the moment. It seems like it would have to be a network issue since it only happens with online games, so trying to go wireless may help us diagnose that.
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thefinder808

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You never gave the full specs of your system, I need those. I also need to know which games this has happened in, and if you're positive they didn't happen before the hard drive switch. I need to know the CPU/GPU temps while gaming, and also if you did a complete clean install of Windows on the new hard drive or used migration software. How did you know that the hard drive was bad in the first place? The CPU voltage drops because it doesn't need all that voltage when it's running at a lower speed, that's normal. The CPU is lowering it's speed during those stutters because it's not being stressed at that time, since the game isn't really running (it's frozen for a few seconds). If you know what motherboard you have you can find the right drivers to install. When did you update the BIOS? That is a somewhat dangerous thing to do if you don't have much technical knowledge, and there's no reason to do that if it was working before the hard drive replacement.
 
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Brakkus

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Full specs:

Processor Cooling Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155] - Standard 120mm Fan
8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair
AMD Radeon HD 7850 - 2GB
ASUS P8Z77-V LK -- 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0
700 Watt Solytech
Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium
wd black2 dual drive (120 SSD, 1TB HDD), this is the new Hard drive. The old one was a 2TB Seagate I think.
Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache)

I think that's it, if there's anything else needed I can give that too.

These issues happen in basically every game I try to play, besides League of Legends for some reason. It happens in WoW, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 4 (those are the games I have installed, I'm sure it'll affect others too).

It was a clean install of windows.

The hard drive wouldn't boot at all, the SATA cable that came with the HDD stopped working as well.

The temperature during gaming is around 50-60 on my CPU (highest it gets is around 75) for the games I've tried. The idle temps right now are between 30-45. For GPU the temps on idle are around 55-60, during games it'll get up to 80.

I updated BIOS a few days ago, using a USB. The issues were happening before the BIOS update though. I couldn't find any drivers for my mobo though, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough?

 
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thefinder808

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Alright your temps are fine so we can check that off the list. The BIOS update isn't the culprit so check that off the list. Here are your motherboard drivers: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P8Z77V_LK/HelpDesk_Download/ You will want the Audio, Chipset, LAN, and USB.

After you install those motherboard drivers you should download a program called Display Driver Uninstaller (make sure you click the link at the bottom with the newest 15.3.1.0 installer) http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
Don't run it yet!

Next download the latest AMD GPU drivers here: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64
Don't install them yet.

To use Display Driver Uninstaller (also called DDU) you first boot into Safe Mode (mash F8 during boot up and select Safe Mode), and then run DDU to completely uninstall your GPU drivers and then reboot. Once you have rebooted into normal Windows install the latest AMD drivers you downloaded. Believe me, I've had some weird symptoms with my GPU even when I thought I was uninstalling all the old drivers to update. Once I started using DDU I haven't had any issues (plus it's free).

That could fix your problem, but if it doesn't there are a couple of other concerns I have. One is that your PSU is not a good model, from what I could tell Solytech has one of the worst reputations of any PSU so that could also be the problem.

Another concern is that all those games (as far as I know) are online, so this could also be a network issue. Make sure you have the latest Windows 7 64-bit drivers for your network card (if you're using wireless, if not then those were included in the motherboard LAN drivers). Go to www.speedtest.net and run a network speed test. See if there are any odd dips during the download portion of the test. You should run it a few times. Let me know what the speeds were.

Last concern I have (so far) is that the SATA cable AND the hard drive failed at the same time, that seems very odd to me. It could mean there was some kind of power surge or it could just be a freak coincidence. It just doesn't seem likely for both to go out at the same time.

Ok so you have some things to try, give that a shot and then let me know what happens. Hopefully the problem will be fixed but if not we will keep trying.
 
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Brakkus

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Ah, I didn't download the chipset drivers so I'll do that now. I'll also do all the safemode stuff and edit my post after everything is done. I guess I should say that I did try swapping out a PSU with my friend, and the problem did persist (he had 750W, different brand but I cant remember which).

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4508620231

There's my speedtest results. Will be back with other results.

Edit: Reinstalling drivers did not fix. A lot of people are telling me it's the PSU, which is a possibility but I did swap out my PSU and the problem still persisted.

Edit 2: Actually I tried playing an offline game (Borderlands TPS) and the problem doesn't occur at ALL.
 
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thefinder808

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Ok so did you install the LAN drivers on the motherboard driver page? While you have good download speeds on the speed test, that doesn't mean that it's consistent. Updated LAN drivers should help that (if you're using a wired connection), also make sure you didn't knock your network card out of whack when putting in the hard drive. Are you using wireless or wired?
 
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Brakkus

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I am using a wired connection to my router, I did install the LAN drivers. Still getting the freezes in online games.

During the speed test it didn't waver or anything, if that info helps any bit.
 
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thefinder808

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You could try a different network cable, and reset your router while you're at it. Are you using a separate network card or the one on the motherboard? Seems to be a network problem which can be very hard to diagnose when it's not in front of you. Go to Control Panel, click System, go to the device manager tab and see if there are any drivers reporting problems. They will have a mark next to them if they do.
 
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Brakkus

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I can play games on my laptop through Wi-Fi or wired fine.

I'm using the built in network card on the motherboard, pretty sure.

Nothing in my device manager seems to be having issues, there's a yellow triangle with a ! next to the USB controller though. I tried searching for drivers, nothing showed up. Reinstalling the USB drivers didnt fix that either.

Edit: A new problem has popped up! I installed Skyrim seeing if other offline games work as well as Borderlands TPS did and the game just freezes if I open it in full screen (stops responding, black screen). If it's windowed it works fine though...

Edit 2: Never mind, it's working now. How strange.

Edit 3: I'm going to be a bit busy tomorrow, so I wont be able to respond too quickly. Just thought I should give you a heads up. And thanks for all the help you've been giving! I don't know how close we are to fixing this dumb issue, but it's the thought that counts, so yeah thanks.
 
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thefinder808

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Do you have a wireless network adapter you could try out on your desktop? Also have you updated windows lately? I'm happy to help, but unfortunately I'm a little stumped at the moment. It seems like it would have to be a network issue since it only happens with online games, so trying to go wireless may help us diagnose that.
 
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Brakkus

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I don't have a wireless adapter for my PC unfortunately.

Edit: Well a different problem is popping up in Heroes of the Storm now. The audio is skipping like CRAZY, even if the game doesn't freeze the audio will skip/stutter.

Edit 2: The problem may have been my RAM all along, it's acting pretty strange at the moment.

Edit 3: Might have just been a memory leak, restarting computer fixed RAM problem but CPU/FPS drop is still there.

Edit 4: This is so dumb, could it possibly be the motherboard? These freezes almost ONLY happen when interacting with OTHER players though, I just tried out a bot practice match (which puts you online, just not against other people) and I had little to no drops...
 
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Brakkus

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Well, I reinstalled windows since I wanted to see if I had some sort of virus or something.

Did not fix the problem, I did reinstall all the drivers again though. But it's a bummer that didn't at least improve things....
 
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Brakkus

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Bought a new Hard Drive and installing online games and playing them through that Hard drive seemed to fix the problem. Thanks for all your help though!
 
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