Desperate For Help w/ Troubleshooting

[OahuGrown1986]

TLDR: Having lots of frame drops and stuttering, basically think I narrowed it down to a hardware issue, just can't figure out exactly what the issue is, if someone could point me in the right direction? Pretty much tried everything I could think of.

 

Hey guys, new to this forum/website, going to start out with kind of a long post, so I apologize in advance (Just started watching on YouTube btw, appreciate all of you at LTT).
I've been having a lot of trouble w/ my PC for awhile. I've been getting a lot of stuttering and FPS drops. At first I thought it was a GPU issue, then PSU, then RAM, then now I'm thinking CPU or Motherboard (LOL, although it's past funny for me :P).

Specs: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, i5-6600K, GTX 970 FTW+, 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM (8x2 G, 2 SSDs (SanDisk and PNY), Corsair H80i GT and Corsair CX750M 750 Watt PSU.

So I've been doing a lot of monitoring (w/ software, I know not very accurate # wise w/ voltages, but the changes should still be applicable right?), and when playing Fallout 4 the gameplay is fairly smooth, but I notice the voltages on my PSU are fluctuating up and down a lot (they are small fluctuations, but it goes up and down up and down up and down, read somewhere they should be stable).

Fluctuations are as follows: +3.3V 3.268V-3.248V, +5V 5.040V-5.000V, +12V 12.096-12.000. Voltages seem good, but the constant fluctuation under load, as in up and down several times within 10 seconds, worries me. Could a PSU throw voltages within spec and still be faulty? Can a PSU even cause FPS drops?

So I go to Fallout New Vegas, which is old and my Hardware should handle no problem, and I keep getting these FPS drops (60-50, and it seems progressive, today 60-20, which never happened before). Drops happen when outdoors loading distant textures (read somewhere this could mean a RAM problem, but not sure. Or could it be GPU VRAM?). GPU doesn't even need to boost in this game (45C on my GPU in this game, high 60'sC in FO4), and CPU usage is very low, though when these FPS drops happen, sometimes my CPU temp will spike up from 38C to 50C, then go back down, although that doesn't happen every time it stutters (50C max for CPU).

Now I'm thinking it's possibly a CPU issue? Or CPU cooler? Or RAM issue? I had CPU OC'ed and RAM on XMP, so I went back to stock everything and the problem is still there. I tried w/ each RAM stick removed, so one and then the other, same thing.

Things I've tried: Memtest86+ (swapped RAM, too) no errors, deletion and reinstallation of drivers, fresh installs of windows, updated BIOS, hardware checks (reseating, cables). Also, seems if I stay in the BIOS for awhile, it will freeze up and I have to do a hard power off and then back on.

System seems to be slow and hang a lot as of late as well. DPC latency w/ latencymon shows dxgkrnl, dvlddkm and ndis.sys spikes very high. It suggested CPU power issue and to disable EIST and power saving options, though these were already off in BIOS and Windows.

If it matters CPU was 24/7 @ 4.5 Ghz. Could my CPU be degrading already? I really don't have the money atm to be buying this and that, so any help in saving my BADLY NEEDED PC would be GREATLY APPRECIATED. Thanks guys!!

 

Edit: sorry for 1st post, highly frustrated atm.

[i_build_nanosuits]

TLDR please?

[xAcid9]

Now i need help too.

 

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

not going to read this

dude - it's 2017 - people attention span is about 2 sentences long - on a good day