[SOLVED] Periodic CPU usage spike coinciding with Windows notification sounds

[HungryShoggoth]

UPDATE:

 

So my amazing wife has MUCH stronger Google-fu than I it seems. She found a reddit post about someone else having a very similar issue with the exact motherboard I have after a Windows update. It seems that the new OS update doesn't like the Wifi/bluetooth card installed in the PCIe slot that ships with the board. After uninstalling the card and it's drivers my USB Bus started going nuts, behaving as if I were plugging in and unplugging something very rapidly. Wife again found a forum post in which someone had fixed that issue by adjusting power settings to prevent the USB Bus from going to sleep. Now my CPU usage is flat at a pancake and I owe my wife a nice dinner. I hope if anyone else has a similar issue this post is somewhat helpful.

 

 

Ok, first off, system specs

i5 8600k (stock speed since troubleshooting, was @ 4.8GHz)

16GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz

MSI Gaming Pro Carbon Z370

EVGA GTX 1080 FTW

500GB Samsung 970 Evo boot drive

 

So here's the problem. For a while now I've had a persistent problem with the 3 chime windows notification sound playing @ about 20 second intervals, it wasn't causing any noticeable problems, so after a bit of googling I muted system sounds and got on with living (I know, not the proper way, but I haven't had a lot of time to tinker lately).

 

Now that I've got a bit more time to use my PC I purchased the RE2 remake on Steam and was extremely frustrated that every 20 seconds or so my framerate would absolutely tank and audio would completely cut out for 5 seconds or so before everything stabilized. It would even crash the game periodically. Tweaked in game setting and got it to the point that it would no longer crash, but still the stuttering and audio cutouts persisted.

 

So I did all of the usual things. Ensured drivers were up to date, updated MOBO bios, force quit background processes etc. Nothing helped. So I opened up Task manager and resource monitor on my second screen while playing and sure enough I was getting huge CPU usage spikes every time one of these hiccups was happening. Then I remembered the obnoxious Windows notification sound, I unmuted the system sounds and sure enough the CPU spikes are corresponding with the sound. Anfd now that the problem was at the forefront of my attention I tried monitoring performance and the spike is happening even when idle.

I've spent several days searching online, but my Goodle-fu just isn't strong enough. I even did a full drive wipe and Windows reinstall to no avail. I'm at a complete loss, if anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate it.

 

TL:DR - Playing new game brought underlying CPU performance issue to my attention. Very regular CPU usage spike correlates with phantom Windows notification beeps.