Computer stuttering/hitching while NOT under load

[Noonies]

Hey gang- longtime watcher, first time poster. I've noticed recently that I'm having to reboot my computer at least once a day, because it feels like if it's been on for a few hours, it'll just start to... stutter. The cursor hitches and lags sometimes while moving, same thing can happen while scrolling, and if I'm watching a YouTube video or something, the video and audio will also periodically just stutter. I've tried nearly everything I can think of- updated the drivers for my motherboard and my GPU, opened the case up to make sure everything was properly seated and gave it all a good dusting, ran AVG and Windows Defender to make sure there wasn't any malware mucking things up. I'd understand somewhat if I had dated components or I was putting heavy strain on the machine, but I'll sit there watching a CPU load of 7% while it's doing this with nothing but a YouTube video and Discord running. The only thing I haven't tried yet is updating the BIOS, but I did that a few months ago so I'm not sure that's the issue either.

 

 

Win10 64-bit, 3080 FE, R7 3800X, 750W power supply. 

[gymleader]

2 hours ago, Noonies said:

but I did that a few months ago so I'm not sure that's the issue either.

Funnily enough it is. Thread on your issue here: 

Solution is to disable fTPM in the BIOS. If you tell me what board you have I can give instructions.

[191x7]

Latest AMD chipset drivers?

Latest Bios on the motherboard?

 

[Noonies]

14 hours ago, gymleader said:

Funnily enough it is. Thread on your issue here: 

Solution is to disable fTPM in the BIOS. If you tell me what board you have I can give instructions.

Well I'm glad it's at least something simple and I'm not insane!

 

I have an ASUS TUF x570 with wifi. I found two TPM settings in the BIOS, one to disable security altogether and one to toggle from firmware to discrete?

[gymleader]

14 hours ago, Noonies said:

Well I'm glad it's at least something simple and I'm not insane!

 

I have an ASUS TUF x570 with wifi. I found two TPM settings in the BIOS, one to disable security altogether and one to toggle from firmware to discrete?

Advanced > Trusted Computing > Security Device Support (Disable)

[Noonies]

On 2/25/2022 at 8:44 AM, gymleader said:

Advanced > Trusted Computing > Security Device Support (Disable)

Unfortunately this doesn't appear to have fixed the problem. I went into the BIOS and disabled the security device support as you suggested, but later in the same day the problem reappeared again. Just idly browsing, CPU and GPU are barely being utilized, and I'm still getting awkward hitches when I move my mouse. If I watch a video on Youtube, I can both see and hear the random hitches and stutters in the video. I'm at a loss here.

[gymleader]

Oh actually there was a pretty famous bug always reported in Nvidia drivers for watching YouTube videos. Every driver update under "known issues" stated issues like YouTube stuttering.

 

Just to be certain you have the latest Nvidia drivers right? 511.79 is latest. It was fixed a couple months ago.

 

If you are on latest one thing to try. I'm not saying your issue will be fixed but if it happens less often then we are on the right track. Go into the Nvidia control pannel and set the GPU to "prefer maximum performance". People were saying something like the cards boosting from idle was causing the issue so enabling this should keep the card from downclocking and having a steady clock.

 

If still issues I have some other ideas to try but don't want to bombard you with stuff all at once.

[Noonies]

1 hour ago, gymleader said:

Oh actually there was a pretty famous bug always reported in Nvidia drivers for watching YouTube videos. Every driver update under "known issues" stated issues like YouTube stuttering.

 

Just to be certain you have the latest Nvidia drivers right? 511.79 is latest. It was fixed a couple months ago.

 

If you are on latest one thing to try. I'm not saying your issue will be fixed but if it happens less often then we are on the right track. Go into the Nvidia control pannel and set the GPU to "prefer maximum performance". People were saying something like the cards boosting from idle was causing the issue so enabling this should keep the card from downclocking and having a steady clock.

 

If still issues I have some other ideas to try but don't want to bombard you with stuff all at once.

Yeah, all my drivers are updated regularly, but this problem only really started maybe a week or two ago. It's not just Youtube- like, I can have Discord up on one screen and Facebook on the other, and when I move my mouse over to do something, it'll hitch. The whole screen just sorta freezes up for a second, then goes back to normal. It's just easier to notice it's happening when I'm watching a video or listening to music, because I can *hear* or *see* everything seize up for a second before continuing. 

[gymleader]

It's really strange because what you describe is really similar to the fTPM issue but looks like it's something else.

 

If the Nvidia thing didn't work the only other thing I can think of would be to ensure the AMD chipset drivers are the correct ones. Be advised that the AMD chipset drivers from amd.com are the wrong ones. The ones provided by Asus (3.10.22.706) are newer than AMD website. They might have some power plan improvement for your issue.

 

This might help let you know if it's a driver issue. Run latencymon: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

When the stuttering happens latencymon should pick it up and tell you what driver or process is causing the problem.

[Noonies]

5 hours ago, gymleader said:

It's really strange because what you describe is really similar to the fTPM issue but looks like it's something else.

 

If the Nvidia thing didn't work the only other thing I can think of would be to ensure the AMD chipset drivers are the correct ones. Be advised that the AMD chipset drivers from amd.com are the wrong ones. The ones provided by Asus (3.10.22.706) are newer than AMD website. They might have some power plan improvement for your issue.

 

This might help let you know if it's a driver issue. Run latencymon: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

When the stuttering happens latencymon should pick it up and tell you what driver or process is causing the problem.

This is what I got from running Latencymon as soon as it was downloaded. I know for an absolute fact that I updated all of my drivers for the motherboard straight from ASUS earlier this week when I was having issues to start with. I haven't tried directly updating the BIOS yet, though. A quick google shows some other people having issues with this Kernel Mode Driver in Latencymon.

[gymleader]

Looks like a tough one to fix since it's so broad. First comment here with some fixes to try: 

 

 

 

[Noonies]

4 hours ago, gymleader said:

Looks like a tough one to fix since it's so broad. First comment here with some fixes to try:

 

 

 

My Windows Power Plan already had the USB selective suspend settings disabled, and the Link State Power Management turned off. I'm currently testing out the "unplug all USB peripherals except M+KB", and so far it seems to be helping. I was getting those massive red spikes on Latencymon right away before, but I've been running it for about ten minutes now without issues. I did notice last night that the hitching seems to happen much worse if I drag my cursor back and forth between my two displays, with one of them running video. Could that be related?
 

[gymleader]

If the issue is not rearing its head now I'd add 1 USB device back at a time (maybe also restart after adding each device) and test again in latencymon till you find what device is causing it. Once you do it's a case of typing stuff like "whatever usb device latencymon" and see if anyone has a fix for the usb device you're using.

 

Are both displays the same framerate?

[Noonies]

11 hours ago, gymleader said:

If the issue is not rearing its head now I'd add 1 USB device back at a time (maybe also restart after adding each device) and test again in latencymon till you find what device is causing it. Once you do it's a case of typing stuff like "whatever usb device latencymon" and see if anyone has a fix for the usb device you're using.

 

Are both displays the same framerate?

They're both 60 Hz monitors, but one of them is 4K and the other is 1080p. After about an hour of no issues, I plugged my USB devices back in and I'm still not having a problem, but I wonder if that's because I turned the PC off last night and booted it up this morning. Generally the issues have been happening once it's been on for a while. I'll test it again tonight.


EDIT: The problem's still happening. I went to dinner with my parents, leaving only the mouse, keyboard, and the speakers plugged in via USB, and Latency Monitor shows I had issues while I was gone, with high measured input to process latency and high reported DPC routine execution time, showing the Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime. I'm at an utter loss here. EVERY driver I have is updated. I'm genuinely considering just doing a full wipe of my system and reinstalling windows fresh.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Noonies

[gymleader]

I hate to say it but sometimes a fresh install is the easiest option.

 

Tip: Install without a network cable plugged in. That way you can run with a local account and install the drivers you want. If you have a network cable in then Windows will auto install stuff like an outdated Nvidia driver. I put the drivers on the Windows USB stick.

[Noonies]

2 hours ago, gymleader said:

I hate to say it but sometimes a fresh install is the easiest option.

 

Tip: Install without a network cable plugged in. That way you can run with a local account and install the drivers you want. If you have a network cable in then Windows will auto install stuff like an outdated Nvidia driver. I put the drivers on the Windows USB stick.

Will do- I can't seem to find my USB stick, so I was gonna head to the store later today and grab one to put my photos and D&D stuff onto. I'll make sure to load it up with all my relevant drivers as well so I can get those on the machine as soon as the reinstall is done. Just need to remember what all to PUT on it- GPU drivers obviously, motherboard drivers, not sure what else

[gymleader]

3 hours ago, Noonies said:

Will do- I can't seem to find my USB stick, so I was gonna head to the store later today and grab one to put my photos and D&D stuff onto. I'll make sure to load it up with all my relevant drivers as well so I can get those on the machine as soon as the reinstall is done. Just need to remember what all to PUT on it- GPU drivers obviously, motherboard drivers, not sure what else

AMD Chipset

Nvidia

Audio (so that realtek audio console gets installed, pretty useful)

Bluetooth

Wi-fi

Ethernet

 

Once this is all installed then I connect ethernet and do any Windows updates since the media creation tool usb is always behind latest builds.

[Noonies]

5 hours ago, gymleader said:

AMD Chipset

Nvidia

Audio (so that realtek audio console gets installed, pretty useful)

Bluetooth

Wi-fi

Ethernet

 

Once this is all installed then I connect ethernet and do any Windows updates since the media creation tool usb is always behind latest builds.

Alright, sounds great! I'll download those drivers now to make sure I have them, then I'll let AVG's driver updater take it from there.

[Noonies]

Well, I screwed something up. I decided to update my BIOS to the newest version before I tried the wipe, and now my computer won't boot. It just goes to the BIOS every time, and doesn't seem to be detecting my boot drive as an option. All three of my hard drives are SHOWING, but I can't select any of them to boot from.  

[gymleader]

1.2.0.6b BIOS? I'm not a fan of the later BIOS for AMD right now. Way too many people saying they have issues. I'd recommend going back to 1.2.0.3a or 1.2.0.3c.

[Noonies]

11 hours ago, gymleader said:

1.2.0.6b BIOS? I'm not a fan of the later BIOS for AMD right now. Way too many people saying they have issues. I'd recommend going back to 1.2.0.3a or 1.2.0.3c.

It was Version 4022 for my motherboard (ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus with Wifi), and I just had to turn off CRM apparently. 

[Noonies]

I'm at a loss. I reinstalled Windows, manually updated my drivers from the files I downloaded onto the jump drive, and only installed the basic programs I need. I left Latency Monitor running last night and woke up to this. I have no idea what to do.