Asus is 'actively investigating' ROG gaming laptop stuttering woes — Models released / sold between 2021 - 2024 affected by 'performance interruptions'

Asus has acknowledged reports about an ongoing stuttering issue with some of its ROG gaming laptops that users claim has been negatively affecting performance and the user experience, according to TechPowerUp. The company stopped short of agreeing that an issue exists, but said that it was "actively investigating these cases," all the same.

"We've seen recent reports about performance interruptions on some ROG laptops, and we want you to know our team is actively investigating these cases," the Asus Statement reads. "We understand that smooth and reliable performance is crucial to high-performance machines like these, and we're dedicated to delivering that. Your feedback and detailed reports are invaluable, and we'll continue to provide updates and support through our official channels." It then thanked users for their patience.

The first reports of this problem started popping up earlier this week when GitHub user, Mohamed "Zephkek" Maatallah created a new repository collecting evidence about the problem. They claim it seems to be affecting a range of users on various Asus ROG gaming laptops, including Strix, Scar, and Zephyrus lines.

The issues include stuttering while watching YouTube videos, audio crackling and pops on Discord, and random mouse cursor freezes. After attempting a range of more generic fixes, Zephkek claims they narrowed the issue down to a problem with Asus' BIOS firmware.

Using the latency monitoring tool LatencyMon, Zephkek discovered that a single CPU core was being bottlenecked by interrupt requests, in some cases for as long as 90 seconds, hamstringing performance and making time-sensitive tasks stutter while core priority is juggled.

Deeper into their investigation, Zephkek also discovered strange power cycling of the dedicated GPU, turning it off and on again repeatedly every 15-30 seconds, even when it's supposed to be consistently active performing specific tasks.

Zephkek concluded that there are actually three problems affecting ROG laptops:

• Misunderstanding of interrupt context introducing unnecessary delays.
• Mishandling of interrupt requests that aren't properly cleared, leading to looping interrupts.
• GPU power cycling that doesn't check which GPU is currently in-use.

They even did the legwork to track down the first public reports of these issues and found one in August 2021 for a G15 Advantage Edition Asus laptop. They then discovered further reports of problems persisting with laptops through 2021 and into 2024, suggesting it affects multiple generations of Asus gaming laptops.

Asus has said it's looking into this issue, so hopefully it won't be long until it releases a firmware patch that fixes this for the majority of users.

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