Losing My Mind – PC stutters when I move mouse, OpenGL? Component Failure?

[Whale]

Around the 9900k's release I built a new PC centered around it. For a few months everything was cheery, but -- if I remember correctly -- after a windows update my PC began to experience stuttering symptoms. Eventually it became quite apparent that this stuttering only came when I moved my mouse. It's been a while since then, and I have truly tried everything. I have tried so many things that I lost track of most of what I have tried, and at this point I'm willing to absolutely start from the top.

 

It stutters most everywhere. Dragging windows around the desktop it'll have half-second hangs that are very frequent. Games like Mount & Blade: Warband and Osu! in particular are hit very, very hard. Both of run butter-smooth -- until I touch my mouse, in which both go to shit. They don't just stutter in a graphical sense, if that means anything -- literally the game freezes for half a second. The AI stop in place. The arrows stop flying around. Simulation pauses in singleplayer. Note that both are OpenGL, and that DirectX games (Arma 3, which I play almost daily) actually run without stuttering as far as I remember.

 

I know for a fact it's the actual mouse, or whatever it does on the way to be rendered -- because I have written an autohotkey script to jiggle my cursor vigorously, and both on the desktop and in these OpenGL games it's buttery smooth with the script but janky as hell with the cursor.

 

I have tried four different mice. Lower Hz (polling rate) ones/settings tend to stutter less, but the stuttering is still present. Note that with my main mouse (old DeathAdder), lowering the polling rate in software (both in the latest Synapse in an old-ass Razer Deathadder Driver program I found) -- actually doesn't do much. It still stutters. It's not super consistent, though. Some days it's not as noticeable. Other days involve notable hangups (1s+).

 

Safe Mode (ie: network-only with no drivers) fixes it as far as I can tell, but it's hard to actually test because I can't use LatencyMon or Osu! in that mode, and I also can't have my monitor at anything higher than 63Hz. Also, interestingly enough, monitoring software -- so far HWiNFO64 and Task Manager -- both seem to 'incite' the stuttering when present. Does my GPU not like being polled? Is that maybe a completely separate issue? Is my whole PC fucked? We'll see!

 

I have also attempted to go one-by-one through the (many) programs that I usually keep up in the background, including Discord, ShareX, Corsair iCUE, Samsung Magician, Voicemeeter Potato & Macrobuttons, Google Drive Sync, Geforce Experience, and Pushbullet. Each closed program seems to lessen the stuttering bit by bit, actually, and if I literally close every single program on my computer, background and foreground, the stutter is almost imperceptible. But: First, it's still present and measureable with Latencymon to be >1ms and worse than it should be, and Second, I have a 9900k and 32GB of RAM. I want to be able to multi-task without my desktop windows hitching every few seconds.

 

EDIT: Also, duh. My monitor setup. Dual as listed below. I use the integrated graphics on the secondary. For some reason Windows says they're both using 8-bits of color depth? See here.

EDIT2: Osu is also measuring stutters when I press keyboard keys -- even when it's paused!

EDIT3: If I hold down the keys it's even worse!!

 

Any and all advice is appreciated -- even telling me to 'try again' with things I did before. I don't mind. I'm pretty desperate to get this fixed before I consider ripping apart and piecemeal-returning a notably expensive computer build.

 

My Specs:
CPU - 9900k @ stock, with great temps, who is getting sipped at (<15%) during this entire debacle.
COOLER - H100i PRO
GPU - GTX 970, who I have tried to ensure isn't using the 0.5GB of 'BAD' VRAM
RAM - Ripjaws V 32GB DDR4, which checks out on memtest and is indeed using the correct XMP profile
PSU - Seasonic FOCUS Plus 650W Platinum Modular
MOBO - Z390 Taichi LGA 1151
OS - Windows 10 64-bit 1803 (17134.829), or so says winver
M.2 NVMe (C:) - Samsung 970 EVO 500GB
SSD 1 - Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
SSD 2 - Samsung 840 EVO 250GB

Keyboard - WASD V2
Mouse - Razer DeathAdder 3.5G Wired, RZ01-0015

Monitor 1 - ASUS VG248QE 24" 1080p 16:9 144Hz, occasionally 120Hz if I use LightBoost, runs on GTX 970

Monitor 2 - Philips 19b4qcb5/27 1280x1024 60Hz

 

In Summary:
- Desktop window dragging, OpenGL games, many other things have micro and macro-freezes whenever I move the mouse.
- When I move the cursor with a script alone, the stuttering is not present.
- It does not actually seem tied to DPI as far as I can tell.
- Monitoring software makes it freeze up even more.

- The keyboard causes it to stutter, too? Or so Osu!'s profiling says.
- If it's really stuttering, occasionally desktop windows outright minimize/maximize themselves at random.

 

Possible Culprits:
- USB drivers
- Corrupted default windows mouse drivers
- Something fucky from Windows Update
- My old GTX 970 GPU
- My new 9900K ,_ ,
- Just having too many programs running, man.
- One of my SSDs, or something SATA-related in the MOBO? My entire system stutters way more when Steam is downloading a game at 5.0MB/s.

 

Culprits I Have Ruled Out:
- Mousepad, since I have tested varying surfaces.
- Individual mouse, since I have tested varying mice with varying DPI/quality.
- USB port, since I have tried both front and back USB ports.

 

Things I Have Tried (If it has a *, that means I may try it again):
- Reinstalling Windows, first a 'refresh', and then from scratch.
- Reinstalling my Graphics Drivers, including a 'clean' re-install using external program(s).*
- Literally flashing a new BIOS on my motherboard, twice, like a desperate idiot.
- Some less-nuclear options like trying other mice, surfaces, updating Windows, refraining from updating Windows, etc.*
- Going one-by-one through my tray programs and closing them, then trying to see if any create an issue.*
- Reducing my Windows DPI from Custom Scaling (160%) to 150%, then even 100%, to little effect.*
- Tweaking BIOS settings to prevent CPU lockup and turning HPET off, didn't affect much.*
- Also turning off HPET in the OS, didn't change anything.*
- Windows SFC /scannow and also that other command that repairs SFC, they found nothing to fix.*
- Performance profiling my SSDs, they were fine.*
- Safe Mode, which might fix it(?).

- Using only the GTX 970, which I remember long ago as not fixing it.

- Using only the Intel HD Graphics on the i9, which I vaguely remember maybe helping ...?*

- Tweaking settings in the NViDiA control panel.

 

Things I Have Used to Test With:
- MemTestx86, since I have had memory problems with a prior build and am paranoid of them. Everything checked out.
- LatencyMon, which reports 1.5ms+ latency from dxgkrnl.sys, ntoskrnl.exe, and nvlddmkm.sys.
- Frametime Analysis Built-in with Osu! 'Cutting Edge' Build, wherein moving my mouse introduces measurable stutters and framedrops.
- Task Manager, wherein Corsair iCue is using a smidge more CPU than expected (1% constantly).
- Resource Monitor, nothing fucky as far as I can tell.
- BenQ Mouse-Rate-Checker (Google it), it said my mouse polling rate was 0Hz-120Hz, which seems low.

 

Speccy is attached below.

 

In conclusion --

whale_speccy_june_2019.txt

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Whale said:

Also, duh. My monitor setup. Dual as listed below. I use the integrated graphics on the secondary.

I briefly tested dual-monitor setup a while ago, with the secondary display connected to the iGPU, and experienced similar issues. The cause of the issue? Windows, for some unfathomable reason, insisted on sending the image from the NVIDIA-card to the iGPU and then back. Disabling the iGPU in the BIOS fixed it for me. Might be worth testing, if nothing else.

[Whale]

8 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I briefly tested dual-monitor setup a while ago, with the secondary display connected to the iGPU, and experienced similar issues. The cause of the issue? Windows, for some unfathomable reason, insisted on sending the image from the NVIDIA-card to the iGPU and then back. Disabling the iGPU in the BIOS fixed it for me. Might be worth testing, if nothing else.

I remember trying it before, but I gave it another shot -- unfortunately, no. It has not relieved my eternal suffering. Thank you for the advice, though!

[Whale]

Wait. Maybe it's worse again lately because I accidentally let Windows install some updates a few days ago?

Maybe. It's still been a thing for months, though. Now it's just -- even the games that used to work (DirectX) don't anymore.

 

EDIT:  So going into safe mode again and testing with the poll rate checker (linked far above), I get consistently expected rates (500Hz, 120Hz) -- but when safe mode is off, I get wildly fluctuating rates. This may just be a side effect of the full-system stuttering while I move my mouse.

 

EDIT2:  After the windows update it's even worse, now, and all games stutter. Everything stutters. It feels like the more I talk about it, the more it stutters. I'd reinstall windows in a heartbeat if it didn't mean a full day of setting all my shit back up.

 

EDIT3:  I booted a copy of Ubuntu LTS on the PC. No stuttering that I can see with any mouse, but it's harder to test there. It's making me think it's windows.

[Whale]

Reinstalled windows. Problem still present. Also noticed my PC wasn't Turbo Boosting properly -- unless I had zero applications running save a stress tester. Is this.. a feature? Is this it? Should I be unable to play OpenGL games unless my CPU has zero else queued up?

 

Note that the stuttering still only comes when I move my keyboard and/or mouse.