Computer stuttering need help!

[nafarious]

Built this PC last August Andy months ago it began to stutter. This stuttering happens on every game I own and while listening to music.

My PC specs are:
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2dMB
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2dMB/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2dMB/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($259.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 (REV 3.1) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair XMS3 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($192.98 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: Inwin 1200W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($161.98 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG UH12LS28 OEM Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $999.91
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-05-16 00:22 EDT-0400)




Can network lag cause stuttering? I was trying to get more info and watching my CPU, Disk, Network, and Memory graphs and noticed that during a stutter I lose all internet connection for that period of time.

 

[thaghost101]

Open up your Resource Monitor and keep an eye on it, Maybe it's some sort of program/process using an excessive amount of CPU/Disk usage or RAM.

To open the Resource Monitor, Hit Start and type "resmon.exe" in the Search bar.

 

[AntiZig]

what do you use to listen to music? is it something like lossless formats or video game rips in odd formats? Those can take up a large amount of CPU time since they are not largely supported and CPUs lack acceleration for decode of those files.

Loss of connection can cause rubber banding, teleporting, skipping etc. Stuttering is defined as a loss of FPS, so I seriously doubt you're losing fps because of your network card unless the card itself is faulty and is causing conflicts with other hardware.

Check your event viewer.

Get a good monitoring program like hwinfo and look at your performance through that. Windows tools while they have improved significantly from xp to win7 are still lacking.

check your utilization and clock rates, check your temperatures, let us know what the results are.

Also, make sure to update the drivers for your network and audio chipsets.

 

[nafarious]

Open up your Resource Monitor and keep an eye on it, Maybe it's some sort of program/process using an excessive amount of CPU/Disk usage or RAM.

To open the Resource Monitor, Hit Start and type "resmon.exe" in the Search bar.

After watching the network graphs and seeing it not happen it is no longer thought to be a network problem.

 

[nafarious]

check your utilization and clock rates, check your temperatures, let us know what the results are.

Also, make sure to update the drivers for your network and audio chipsets.

I usually listen to music either on pandora, youtube, or itunes. I do this while playing Starcraft, Diablo 3, APB, etc other games that are paid for and not rips.

Also how to I install the new drivers and audio chipsets? As well as check my utilization and clock rates, and temperatures?

 

[DM186]

Drivers you go to the manufacturers web site or go to the AMD/ATI or nVidia web site and down load drivers for your GPU. Go to the manufacturers for your MOBO and your sound drivers.

I will link you to some programs to help you monitor your stuff. MSI Afterburner is a good tool to monitor your GPU temps and fps as well. I will also link you to it user manual. I hope this helps and good luck.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/images/Afterburner%20User%20Manual.pdf

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

[nafarious]

Drivers you go to the manufacturers web site or go to the AMD/ATI or nVidia web site and down load drivers for your GPU. Go to the manufacturers for your MOBO and your sound drivers.

I will link you to some programs to help you monitor your stuff. MSI Afterburner is a good tool to monitor your GPU temps and fps as well. I will also link you to it user manual. I hope this helps and good luck.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/images/Afterburner%20User%20Manual.pdf

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Ok thank you however with the MSI Afterburner I have no idea what I am looking at even after reading the manual and fear I will *** something up.

Secondly on most of this i have no idea what it is I am looking at. What am I watching for?

 

[DM186]

You down load this stuff to monitor your temps of your CPU and the MSI Afterburner is what you monitor your graphic card (GPU) temps and you can see how many frame rates you are using.

Plus you can set your fan on your GPU using MSI Afterburner to run faster as your temps rise. Like all of us we have mess around with it to see how it works. You have to down load them to your PC.

Once you get a feel for this stuff it will be easy to figure it out. The only thing you don't want to mess around are the Core Clock, Shader Clock, and the Memory Clock in MSI Afterburner. They are used to over clock your GPU. So don't change those settings.

 

[nafarious]

I downloaded HWiNFO64 and ran its scan and got this report (in link below).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11750371/MATT-PC.LOG

 

[AntiZig]

I usually listen to music either on pandora, youtube, or itunes. I do this while playing Starcraft, Diablo 3, APB, etc other games that are paid for and not rips.

Also how to I install the new drivers and audio chipsets? As well as check my utilization and clock rates, and temperatures?

ok, can you determine if listening to music actually causes your problem? If yes, can you figure out if it the online streaming (pandora) or itunes?

For utilization and temps, I recommend to get hwinfo (64 bit version if you're running 64 bit win7), then when you open it, check the box for sensors only and hit run, gives you very comprehensive run down of your sensors. As a bonus feature you can also start it in full mode that will pull a lot of info from your hardware that you can go through. The only gripe I have with it, is it doesn't make graphs over time, so you have to log the temps and then do an excel graph yourself, which isn't too terrible but extra work if you just want to see how the temp varied in the last 10 mins.

drivers for motherboard stuff (nic and audio) you can find on your motherboard manufacturer's support website.

 

[nafarious]

ok, can you determine if listening to music actually causes your problem? If yes, can you figure out if it the online streaming (pandora) or itunes?

For utilization and temps, I recommend to get hwinfo (64 bit version if you're running 64 bit win7), then when you open it, check the box for sensors only and hit run, gives you very comprehensive run down of your sensors. As a bonus feature you can also start it in full mode that will pull a lot of info from your hardware that you can go through. The only gripe I have with it, is it doesn't make graphs over time, so you have to log the temps and then do an excel graph yourself, which isn't too terrible but extra work if you just want to see how the temp varied in the last 10 mins.

drivers for motherboard stuff (nic and audio) you can find on your motherboard manufacturer's support website.

I am quite positive it isn't the music, because I have had it happen to me when I had no music on. I am going to try playing a game without the internet on however I am begging to think it is more of a hardware problem. Due to the fact that I have updated all the drivers I could find and it still occurs.

 

[AntiZig]

alright, find out what your temperatures and utilizations are then

 

[nafarious]

I was able to test this problem, playing starcraft with the internet off and listening to music on itunes, and the internet on and listening to music on pandora. There was no stuttering until I went to close Starcraft the second time and then while it was closing it began to stutter.

I found some new bios to update my mother board and will be doing so later today. If that still does not work I am going to open up my case, clean things out, and check the wiring.

Do I need to change the heat sink gel?

 

[nafarious]

Update some bios and drivers on my motherboard however I still get the stutter. But it is more space out now.

 

[nafarious]

here is this too http://gyazo.com/3509abf8f0d8550bac502a7b6fc441b2

 

[AntiZig]

here is this too http://gyazo.com/3509abf8f0d8550bac502a7b6fc441b2

and what exactly is that? have you asked yourself what you're trying to prove with that screenshot?

all I can conclude that at idle your CPU spikes to 50% load sometimes. Is that helpful in solving your problem?

 

[nafarious]

and what exactly is that? have you asked yourself what you're trying to prove with that screenshot?

all I can conclude that at idle your CPU spikes to 50% load sometimes. Is that helpful in solving your problem?

Actually that screenshot is what helped me too fix my problem if you look at the bottom and see the mcsvhost errors.

 

[nafarious]

I have fixed my own problem it all came down to mcafee being a piece of *** that was installed on my computer. Everything is running fine now

 

[DM186]

I was able to test this problem, playing starcraft with the internet off and listening to music on itunes, and the internet on and listening to music on pandora. There was no stuttering until I went to close Starcraft the second time and then while it was closing it began to stutter.

I found some new bios to update my mother board and will be doing so later today. If that still does not work I am going to open up my case, clean things out, and check the wiring.

Do I need to change the heat sink gel?

To change the thermal paste is not recomemend unless the processor has come lose from the heat sink and you are having a heat issue.

If you are having stutter cleaning out your rig will not fix it unless you have a build up of dust inside.

In my opinion I think you have to much stuff running in the back ground and they are using the resources you need.

 

[AntiZig]

Actually that screenshot is what helped me too fix my problem if you look at the bottom and see the mcsvhost errors.

I see, strange to say the least, I've used mcafee for 4 years in college (since my university was paying for it) I've seen the fact that it was setting affinity to its own processes but it never affected my performance/responsiveness in games. Looking at your CPU graph, if mcafee was bottlenecking something, it wasn't your CPU.

Anyways, good riddance, mcafee is indeed a subpar antivirus, and good job fixing your own problem.

 

[AndrewHitchcock96]

Just throwing it out there... maybe a wire is loose? and it's being shaken out?

 

[nafarious]

Best answer selected by nafarious.