Laptop freezes/stutters/drops frames for a split second constantly

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510
My Laptop is experiencing split second stutters, or freezes very often.
It's usually every 45 seconds - 3 minutes, but it will act as if it skips, or drops frames, or freezes but only for half a second.

I am running windows 10, intel i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 16 Gigs of ram, Nvidia GTX 960M, with 120GB SSD and two 500GB HDD.

I have no idea what has caused this problem, and i have done everything under the sun to try and fix it, and i'm at a complete loss.

I installed 17 drivers, and then shortly after this problem started, so i went back to my restore point before the driver install, and it was still doing it. Which i thought was weird because isnt that the whole point of system restore? anyways, i downloaded all the drivers, one at a time to see which one made the problem go away, or worse, and each driver update did nothing, as my laptop was already stuttering since the updates, and then system restore.
I uninstalled everything i have installed in the last week, i ran a RAM test thing, i defragged everything, i made sure it wasnt the Nvidia card, it's not my mouse, i'm not using AMD so it has nothing to do with that, xbox app is deleted, i ran a virus scan for every file on my laptop and it came up clean, including a root scan, also came up clean, opening task manager and looking at the usage, my cpu usage is at 3% 3.48GHZ, memory is at 23% disks are at 0, and when the laptop stutters i see no spike in anything, memory or usage it stays exactly the same.

I rolled my laptop back to the furthest back restore point i had and it seemed to be working fine, the stuttering stopped, and everything was good... for about a half hour. Once i saw that the stutter left, i made a restore point of my laptop prior to the stutter, after it made the restore point, it started stuttering again.

I've been watching my performance while typing this, and there isn't really a pattern, but i have noticed this, when my laptop stutters, the wi-fi performance bar spikes. I have no idea what it means, or what i can do about it, but i'm so far lost and out of this world, i don't know what to do. It seems like a hardware issue, but i have literally never had a problem before, and when i rolled back i don't know why it stopped stuttering for half an hour. If anyone can help, i would be so happy you have no idea....

So when my laptop drops a frame/stutters/freezes for a split second, my audio is not affected whatsoever, and i have once again noticed the stutters either make my CPU usage spike, or my wi-fi in no particular pattern, sometimes the cpu spikes, sometimes the wifi, sometimes neither. I'm lost.....

https://gyazo.com/b02def2a402feb6498348042093b6dfa
https://gyazo.com/626fe3d10b494d58dd7e95198a33ff14
https://gyazo.com/f298d932ffb3582b68df618a411966e4
https://gyazo.com/abc9162915f506b1bb172630c383698b

If you've made it this far, and read my novel, and can help or even offer ideas, you are truly great, and i appreciate it so very much, you have no idea.

It happens when typing, watching youtube, playing league of legends, playing 7 days to die, portal 2, and literally at every stage of doing anything.
 
Solution


Sorry, back now. Busy weekend :D

Looks like everything is fine...

Try this, use the laptop when it's not connected to the internet to see if the network card is being weird.

Even trying to use an ethernet cable instead of WiFi might help you out :)

I heard that the network card may be to fault here (Source: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/274845-laptop-freezing-stuttering-randomly-during-use.html)

If not then I suggest...

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360
Hello!

I had an issue like this with my laptop and what fixed it for me was a complete factory reset.

In Windows 10 you can do this by going to settings, update and security, recovery then under "Reset this PC" click on "Get started".

Make sure that you backup any data beforehand though as this will wipe your HDD and put it to a state as though you just bought it again.

This may help you like it helped me :)
 

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510


The only problem with that is i have no way of backing up my memory, and i have so much stuff on here i wouldnt want to completely wipe it :/
 

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360


Alright :)

In that case go with what I said in the last post and there are several options that come up called "Keep my files", "Remove everything" and "Restore factory settings" the option you're after is "Keep my files" so everything should still be there when the computer has finished resetting :)
 

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510


But that will still delete all my games and programs and everything. I have so many steam games downloaded, and other apps like spotify, and visual novels, and i'm pretty sure it will delete all of those, no?
 

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360


Windows is an odd OS so to be on the safe side, get yourself an external HDD the same size as your laptop's HDD and backup everything onto that and then restore from it when you have finished resetting your laptop.

Otherwise you'll have to reinstall everything and that would take time and would be a pain.
 

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510


Well i will keep that in mind for a worst case scenerio, along with saving up to buy a terabyte external hard drive, but is there anything else, anything else at all, you can think of that might work?
 

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360


I honestly don't think so without having to buy another drive because it looks as though you have done everything that I would have done should I have been in front of the system myself...

Try to give the company you bought the system from a call and see what they can do to help you out :)
 

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360
Wait wait wait, take a screenshot of your task manager, let's see what's running.

I can pick out processes that are causing a problem.

Take 3 screenshots, 1 with CPU usage at highest usage first, second with highest RAM first and third with highest disk usage first :)
 

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510

zylon0217

Commendable
Sep 23, 2016
6
0
1,510


are you still there?
 

GameFreak01048

Honorable
Feb 17, 2016
694
0
11,360


Sorry, back now. Busy weekend :D

Looks like everything is fine...

Try this, use the laptop when it's not connected to the internet to see if the network card is being weird.

Even trying to use an ethernet cable instead of WiFi might help you out :)

I heard that the network card may be to fault here (Source: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/274845-laptop-freezing-stuttering-randomly-during-use.html)

If not then I suggest just wiping the machine back to factory settings and reinstalling everything because something must have gone very wrong indeed for such an odd thing to keep on happening.
 
Solution