CPU stutter?

Hi  

Run a hard drive test in DOS...HIRENS CD etc, it sounds like a failing hard drive...

All the best Brett  

thanks, I'll try that. Damn, I hope it's not the hd, the thing is brand new and I just RMA'd the last one 

By all means check your hard drive.

But if that isn’t it… Do you have a second monitor? If so hook it up and enable the standard gadget that monitors your internet connection. Normally you'll get a sawtooth wave during online gameplay. Check to see if, when this studdering happens, you see a corresponding drop off in your connection speed or activity. It could be that your internet connection is lagging out.

But don’t get mad at your ISP if it is. It may not be on your side. Just remember that on line games like skyrim rely on buffering on your system to keep everyone on the same page. If you lose connection with the server at the end of your buffer, you can get that kind of stammering, skipping… I call it Lag.

I play a lot of TF2, and lag is the devil. It’s usually on the server side, especially with a rig as nice as yours. See if you can change to a better server.

I don't think it's a server/network issue, as I'm not playing online(Spec ops is on steam, but I'm only playing single-player).
Resource monitor shows the sawtooth wave you're talking about, even if I'm playing solo...weird. Ran chkdsk, couldn't find any problems, and I'm downloading hirenCD right now.

When I look at the Resource Monitor while playing, the HD readout if giving me that sawtooth pattern; does that mean the HD is probably done for?

lower your game settings and resolution. the video card can't handle what's being put before it.

I don't think that's it; I was playing spec ops today, it was handling 60fps just fine. It just freezes randomly for a second or two(usually when nothing's happening onscreen, like I'm just walking around slowly). My HD shows no errors when I scan it, but its usage is going crazy here.

Hard drive is a Barracuda 1TB SATA 7200 with 6 gb/s. BUT, device manager is detecting it as a ATA drive, not SATA. Could this be slowing the drive down?

you do realize that spec ops is a DX9 game don't you? and your card doesn't render the same as it does in DX10/11.

Hm...good point. That makes sense, cause I don't really notice it in Far Cry 3 or Re5(dx10 mode). Pretty sure far cry is 10 or 11 as well.