PC slows down and microstutters at random intervals

[Mondodimotori]

For more than two months now, I am experiencing random slow downs and microstutters with my PC in any use scenario: Web browsing, gaming and video reproduction. These last for less than a second and appears at long intervals: From several hours apart to several days apart.

I feel them more when gaming and watching videos because they present themselves with a brief "slow motion" effect accompanied by a stuttery and metalic sound from the speakers.

 

I'll leave a couple of example videos under spoiler here: One is a recreation I made of what I see/hear when these happens, another is a capture I made with OBS when one of these stutters happened.

Spoiler

 

 

 

This is a recreation I made of what I see/hear

 

 

 

 

This is a capture I made with OBS when one of these stutters happened

 

I'll also leave here under spoiler all the things I alredy did/tried to fix the problem:

Spoiler

I immediatly tried to see if some component was bottlenecking the rest of the machine using "Task Manager" and "Hardware Monitor", but I saw nothing out of the ordinary when one of the stutters happened.

Online I wasn't able to find someone with this same problem.

The temps are low and far from any problems.

I didn't made any changes to the system at hardware/software level before the problem started showing himself.

I alredy tried updating drivers (video/audio), the SO and the chipset to no avail.

I also tried a clean installation from scratch of the video driver using DDU.

I tried a different HDMI cable and connecting the speakers directly into the PC, noticing that the audio stutter is still there, meaning it's not a connection problem.

I disabled every OC I had on the MOBO (just the "Gaming OC" that came with it, no manual OC).

I even disassembled the whole machine for it's yearly clean up from dust.

 

The only thing I have to try its to change the PSU, unfortunately I don't have any lying around to swap and test it.

 

 

 

My specs are:

• Windows 10 (latest update)
• MSI B450 GAMING PLUS MAX
• AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (Gaming OC enabled from the MOBO, problem still present with it disabled)
• Corsair VENGEANCELPX16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 3600(Pc4-28800) C181.35V
• XFX RX 5700 DD Boost Up Ultra 8GB (Stock)
• Crucial MX500 CT500MX500SSD1 SSD (boot drive)
• Toshiba P300 HDD 2TB (storage)
• Sharkoon WPM Gold Zero 750W
• Scythe Fuma 2

[Kaaverik]

I have the same problem actually, on my HP Envy x360 with the r5 4500u. I have learned to pretty much live with them, the same garbled metallic sound and brief slowdown of a video.

 

Is your memory usage high? I have noticed that they occur regularly when I am using a high amount of RAM on my laptop, or have many tabs open, but I have never had the situation appear on my desktop which has 32gb of RAM.

[Mondodimotori]

4 minutes ago, Kaaverik said:

I have the same problem actually, on my HP Envy x360 with the r5 4500u. I have learned to pretty much live with them, the same garbled metallic sound and brief slowdown of a video.

 

Is your memory usage high? I have noticed that they occur regularly when I am using a high amount of RAM on my laptop, or have many tabs open, but I have never had the situation appear on my desktop which has 32gb of RAM.

Nope. In the "did/tried" spoiler I alredy said that I examined the PC performances with both Task Manager and Hardware Monitor when these slow downs happens, and nothing out of the ordinary appears. CPU ok, GPU ok, Disk ok and RAM usage ok.

 

But it's encouraging that someone has the same problem, it makes it easier to troubleshoot. I've been told it could be the PSU, but I don't have a replacement aroud to switch it and test it.

[Mojo-Jojo]

Do you happen to have the TPM enabled?

 

I ask because of this discussion. I've had the same problem with TPM enabled.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Mojo-Jojo

[Mondodimotori]

3 minutes ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

Do you happen to have the TPM enabled?

Yes, yes I do. I actually enabled it not so long ago. Some time after the video uploaded on LTT, so around October, maybe? Could that be the reason? Should I try to disable it and let you know?

I actually had to go through the whole process of switching to a UEFI bios from Legacy to enable TPM. But I can't pinpoint if the problem appeared right after it. It sure appeared after that whole ordeal.

[Mojo-Jojo]

Just now, Mondodimotori said:

Yes, yes I do. I actually enabled it not so long ago. Some time after the video uploaded on LTT, so around October, maybe? Could that be the reason? Should I try to disable it and let you know?

I edited my post just too late.

 

There's a topic on the forum about fTPM causing stuttering. With Windows 11, a lot of BIOSes these days enable fTPM by default. Since then, there's been an uptick in the number of people with these issues.

[Mondodimotori]

1 minute ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

I edited my post just too late.

 

There's a topic on the forum about fTPM causing stuttering. With Windows 11, a lot of BIOSes these days enable fTPM by default. Since then, there's been an uptick in the number of people with these issues.

I'll take a look at that thread too, adding my experience in the replies. I'll also try to disable TPM and see if the problem goes away. Thanks a lot for the insight, I've been searching people with the same problem as me for weeks now. Just I still have Windows 10. I enabled TPM because it was "more security, so why not"?

[Kaaverik]

12 minutes ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

I edited my post just too late.

 

There's a topic on the forum about fTPM causing stuttering. With Windows 11, a lot of BIOSes these days enable fTPM by default. Since then, there's been an uptick in the number of people with these issues.

Thanks for the info! I will look into this also.

[Zapperr]

Were you able fix this issue? Because I'm also experiencing that random slow downs in my PC, like your first example, haven't gotten any stutters though.

[Mondodimotori]

14 hours ago, Zapperr said:

Were you able fix this issue? Because I'm also experiencing that random slow downs in my PC, like your first example, haven't gotten any stutters though.

Up until now I haven't experienced any issues after disabling fTPM. But I'll wait a full week before marking the solution, because it's not the first time I thought to have solved it, for it to pop up again after a few days.

[Mondodimotori]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:33 PM, Zapperr said:

Were you able fix this issue? Because I'm also experiencing that random slow downs in my PC, like your first example, haven't gotten any stutters though.

Ok, been seven days now and I didn't suffer any more stutters. So I think I can mark the "Disabling fTPM" as the solution.

[Zapperr]

On 1/18/2022 at 11:38 PM, Mondodimotori said:

Ok, been seven days now and I didn't suffer any more stutters. So I think I can mark the "Disabling fTPM" as the solution.

I can confirm. I disabled fTPM like 3 weeks ago and voila! No more stutters since then. I normally use my PC for at least 4-5 hours a day so I definitely would've noticed if it didn't fix the issue.