Windows Lag / Stutter

[Scuuuba_Steve]

Hello,

I have been having an issue with my computer stuttering and FPS/audio lag. Basically, anything I do, there is a 1-2 second stutter ever 5-20 seconds. Whether I am watching a movie, listening to music, downloading goodies, or even opening up a browser or any new window for that matter. The computer doesn't seem to do it after I restart, but after about 30 minutes it starts to happen, and it continues from that point on. This issue has been happening for a few months now and I can't play games anymore (defeating the point of having a gaming rig).

It's difficult to pinpoint if this is a hardware issue, because the computer does not do it after I restart, so I would have to wait 30-1 hour to find out if its the part that I removed. I have tried a fresh install of Windows 10. I am limited on parts, but have tried swapping out the RAM sticks. The rig is somewhat new (built within the past 2 years) from all new parts. I provided a list of specs below.

I previously had Windows 8.1 and it was fine, but after upgrading to Windows 10, I don't think the lag occurred immediately after upgrading to Windows 10. I had added more parts after I upgraded to Windows 10, such as a new hard drive and more RAM, so I am thinking one of these could be the culprit. I also checked to make sure all of my drivers are up to date. Can anyone help me out or give me some things I could try to fix this issue? Thank you.

CPU: AMD FX-6300
Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming ATX
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 2 x 4gb
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 2 x 4gb
Storage: Kingston SSD 120gb (windows)
Storage: WD Blue 1tb (programs)
Storage: Seagate 2tb SSHD (storage)
GPU: MSI Radeon R7 370 4GB
Case: Corsair 760T
PSU: EVGA 500w 80+
Optical Drive ASUS DRW-24B1ST
Wireless Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800
Case Fans: 6 Corsair Air Series AF120
Fan Controller: NZXT Sentry 3
Monitors: Dual monitors (Acer H236HLbid 23")
Keyboard / Mouse combo: Cooler Master CM Storm Devastator
Windows 10

 

[Solandri]

If you have a pagefile on either the WD or Seagate drives, disable it. If the drive has gone into powersave mode and Windows needs to access the pagefile on it (it does this a lot even when you still have lots of free RAM), Windows will freeze for a split second while it waits for the drive to become ready.

Find the Win 10 chipset drivers for your motherboard and install them. If there are no Win 10 chipset drivers yet, try getting them from the AMD site.. Microsoft's generic chipset drivers suck and can cause stutters and freezes like you're describing, and they actually make the problem worse because they remove the "no driver installed" flag in Device Manager making it harder to track down the problem and blocking automatic updates.

 

[Scuuuba_Steve]

Thank you so much for the advice. I haven't tried it yet, but I believe it is a driver issue because it started happening around the time I upgraded to Windows 10. I'll check it out once I get home and report back.

And regarding the pagefile, what is that? Where can i disable it?

I am looking at the drivers available for the motherboard, and they only have onboard audio drivers and onboard LAN drivers. Which drivers do I choose from the AMD website?

 

[Solandri]

Pagefile:
Windows key, search for "system (control panel)". Advanced system settings -> Performance Settings -> Advanced tab -> Virtual Memory Change

On the AMD website, you want to find the "chipset" drivers for your motherboard's chipset (AMD 970).

 

[Scuuuba_Steve]

If you have a pagefile on either the WD or Seagate drives, disable it. If the drive has gone into powersave mode and Windows needs to access the pagefile on it (it does this a lot even when you still have lots of free RAM), Windows will freeze for a split second while it waits for the drive to become ready.

Find the Win 10 chipset drivers for your motherboard and install them. If there are no Win 10 chipset drivers yet, try getting them from the AMD site.. Microsoft's generic chipset drivers suck and can cause stutters and freezes like you're describing, and they actually make the problem worse because they remove the "no driver installed" flag in Device Manager making it harder to track down the problem and blocking automatic updates.

I'm doing one at a time so that I can see what the problem was. So far, I disabled the pagefile and set it to 0. The computer restarted, and it's been on for 2 hours. I'm watching Batman v Superman in HD bluray while downloading a couple of other things and no lag or stuttering of any kind. Not holding my breath, but I really hope this works.

 

[Scuuuba_Steve]

Pagefile:
Windows key, search for "system (control panel)". Advanced system settings -> Performance Settings -> Advanced tab -> Virtual Memory Change

On the AMD website, you want to find the "chipset" drivers for your motherboard's chipset (AMD 970).

Thank you for this information. So I found the drivers. There are two, AMD Chipset Driver and AMD RaidXpert Utility. I am not sure what the RaidXpert utility is, but should I just download and install both?

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/chipset?os=Windows+10+-+64

Also, I left my PC on all night and this morning when I used it, didn't see any type of stutter. When I get home from work I will check it out again and also install these other drivers.

 

[Scuuuba_Steve]

Thank you for your replies, but installing the new drivers did not fix the stuttering.

I decided to go back down to Windows 8.1 to see if this fixes the issue. It is still there, but is much less noticeable. Again, if I restart the computer then it works fine for a little while, then it begins to stutter again. I am using DPC Latency Checker and when I first turn on the computer I get a mix of green and yellow bars. After a few hours, its all yellow and red bars. I am stumped. I also tried going down every driver and disabling (the ones that could actually be disabled without the PC shutting down) one by one and the bars remained yellow/red. Could this be a hardware issue? I have heard that it could be the mother board, but I really don't want to buy another one just to find out. I downloaded several hard drive programs to ensure my hard drives are all working properly, and they all passed (Seagate, Western Digital, and Kingston programs). Are there any programs I can do to test the other hardware? Any other suggestions would be great. Thanks.

 

[Scuuuba_Steve]

Bump...

Also tried removing all of the hard drives except the SSD, and the RAM sticks except for one. Problem remained. I used to have a wifi card but removed that too. The mobo doesnt have a video port so I can't remove the GPU, but I did switch out the CPU with another one and no luck. I'm thinking it has to be either the mobo or PSU?