Micro-freezing on High End Prebuilt RTX 3080

[ChristianTheJew]

Hey, y'all.

I've been suffering from an issue for a year now and I've tried nearly errything I could think of to fix it, and then contacted Nvidia and my computer's manufacturer. They weren't able to really tell me what was wrong. Whenever I play a game (mostly noticed on Overwatch, The Long Drive, Star Craft 2, and Red Dead Redemption), every ten minutes or so there is a brief freeze in frames in graphics with audio and gameplay continuing that lasts for between .5-2 seconds. No slow down just a clean freeze for a moment. It's really been screwing with competitve games and I have not been able to find a solution. Here's hoping someone even knows what to call this.



Things I've tried:
-Uninstalling drivers, clean install
-Unseating RTX 3080 and putting back in
-Checked Cables
-Quit all apps in background
-Turned off VPN
-uninstalled all overlays and game monitoring software
-a different RTX 3080
 

[ChristianTheJew]

Here's another example:

 

[ChristianTheJew]

And anotha: 

[SpookyCitrus]

If it does it with a completely different 3080 and a fresh install of Windows it could be another hardware related issue, what are your full PC specs?

[ChristianTheJew]

13 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

...what are your full PC specs?

[SpookyCitrus]

What are your temps when playing games and under load? Alienwares are notorious for poor temps. It could also be memory related, if you haven't already you should run a memtest86 or Windows Memory Diagnostic test on it. 

[ChristianTheJew]

18 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

What are your temps when playing games and under load? Alienwares are notorious for poor temps. It could also be memory related, if you haven't already you should run a memtest86 or Windows Memory Diagnostic test on it. 

I heard that was the case as well, but honestly I've never run over 80 celsius under load for sustained periods. I'm going to try running those tests and reporting back. Thank you for the recommendation! 

[Zando_]

See if there's a BIOS update for your board. AMD chips with fTPM enabled (prebuilts would likely have it on by default) are known to have stuttering issues, AMD fixed it for normal Ryzen with an AGESA update.

 

If the info in that screenshot is reading properly, looks like there is a new BIOS from Feb this year that fixes some security stuff, it likely includes the AGESA update as well but Dell doesn't seem to keep up the older downloads so I can't check in which version it was added. Double check that I got the model right before running it, but link is here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/alienware-aurora-r10-desktop/drivers

[ChristianTheJew]

2 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

...run a memtest86 or Windows Memory Diagnostic test on it. 

No issues in memory tests. 

[ChristianTheJew]

1 hour ago, Zando_ said:

See if there's a BIOS update for your board. AMD chips with fTPM enabled (prebuilts would likely have it on by default) are known to have stuttering issues, AMD fixed it for normal Ryzen with an AGESA update.

 

If the info in that screenshot is reading properly, looks like there is a new BIOS from Feb this year that fixes some security stuff, it likely includes the AGESA update as well but Dell doesn't seem to keep up the older downloads so I can't check in which version it was added. Double check that I got the model right before running it, but link is here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/alienware-aurora-r10-desktop/drivers

This is awesome. I will take a look at this right away. Thank you for the help. 

[ChristianTheJew]

1 hour ago, Zando_ said:

See if there's a BIOS update for your board. AMD chips with fTPM enabled (prebuilts would likely have it on by default) are known to have stuttering issues, AMD fixed it for normal Ryzen with an AGESA update.

 

If the info in that screenshot is reading properly, looks like there is a new BIOS from Feb this year that fixes some security stuff, it likely includes the AGESA update as well but Dell doesn't seem to keep up the older downloads so I can't check in which version it was added. Double check that I got the model right before running it, but link is here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/alienware-aurora-r10-desktop/drivers

I updated the BIOS and am still dealing with the micro freezing issue. Is there any of fixes you might recommend?

[Zando_]

11 minutes ago, ChristianTheJew said:

I updated the BIOS and am still dealing with the micro freezing issue. Is there any of fixes you might recommend?

Disable fTPM altogether if it lets you. I think you'll need to reinstall windows afterwards though, not sure. Worth seeing if it boots up before going to reinstall. TPM isn't required for W10 install, just W11.

[ChristianTheJew]

2 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Disable fTPM altogether if it lets you.

What if I download the AGESA update? 

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, ChristianTheJew said:

What if I download the AGESA update? 

AGESA is AMD's portion of the BIOS, if you updated the BIOS then you got whatever the latest AGESA update Dell included was. If that did nothing then Dell didn't issue a BIOS update including that fix, the fix isn't working, or fTPM isn't the issue. If you disable fTPM altogether then you can rule all that out (if the stuttering remains) or know that it was the issue (if the stuttering stops).

[191x7]

3 hours ago, ChristianTheJew said:

I updated the BIOS and am still dealing with the micro freezing issue. Is there any of fixes you might recommend?

Go here and install the Chipset drivers

https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/x570

[ChristianTheJew]

Man, I've tried everything and nothing seems to work. I'm starting to think Dell is just sweeping this under the rug at this point. I'm calling customer support and am not gonna stop harassing them until they find a solution. Just sucks that I've spent money on the support assist and no one seems to be able to know what's causing this. 

[MattyB79]

have you removed all traces of Support Assist? It's well know for causing stuttering issues. if you go to 'Uninstall a Program' you could find 3 or more references to Support Assist. Uninstall all of them. 

[ChristianTheJew]

On 3/23/2023 at 5:50 PM, MattyB79 said:

have you removed all traces of Support Assist? It's well know for causing stuttering issues. if you go to 'Uninstall a Program' you could find 3 or more references to Support Assist. Uninstall all of them. 

I have not gotten rid of support assist yet, going to work with premium support and they want to replace the mother board and only one stick of RAM.

[MattyB79]

On 4/3/2023 at 4:40 AM, ChristianTheJew said:

I have not gotten rid of support assist yet, going to work with premium support and they want to replace the mother board and only one stick of RAM.

How'd you go with this? If the new board did nothing then my guess it's the Dell software causing the issue. Completely removing Support Assist fixed the same issue in my system. 

[kri941224]

They didn't upgrade AGESA.

Just disable fTPM if you are not planning to use windows 11. All of that stuttering will be gone.