Weird issue causing my computer to lose time while using the computer

[Jacotheron]

As the title suggests, my computer is losing time, and I have no idea where to go look for a solution.

 

My computer is a desktop Amd 5700X, on Asus X570 motherboard, with GTX 1660ti graphics and 32Gb RAM, running Windows 11.

 

The losing of time happens while using the computer, though hard to estimate how much time is lost.

 

A while back I noticed that some of my software, that needed precise synced time with the Internet was unable to work (difference was greater than 1 minute). I then performed a sync with a timeserver and the time jumped forward by about 4 minutes.

 

I have checked that my computer regularly syncs time, and even force a time sync when starting up and connected to Internet (compared to once a week); yet the time is going out of sync. I boot my computer every morning, shutting it down after use (I also ensured it is completely down, so no funny sleep-state business).

 

I have also noticed that when I am playing media (whether music using iTunes or Spotify; VLC Media Player, watching YouTube on Firefox or Brave or any other media), I can hear pops in the audio, and the sync between the audio and video gets lost (usually the audio is before the video; very distracting).

 

I have tried looking into a resource that may be over utilized on the system, but so far was unable to find anything that might be a cause:

• CPU typically remains 10 - 60% (Task Manager with graphs for each logical core shows no single core over utilized)
  • Speed is variable around 4-4.2GHz
  • Processes are at 323, threads at ~6960; handles at 211.4k
  • Current Uptime >10 hours
• RAM: 70% utilization, no spikes  etc.
  • 2x 16GB Dimms (3200MHz)
  • Committed: 35.2 / 41.4 GB
  • Cached 10.1 GB
  • In use 21.8 GB (2.4 GB Compressed)
• Disks:
  • I have total of 5 partitions, on 5 disks (2 HDD, 1x SATA SSD, 2x NVMe SSD)
    • the 2x HDD are 6TB units, one being Primary Data drive, other being dedicated Backup drive.
  • While performing backups, the 2 drives used (reading drive and storing drive) are highly utilized (>50%) the issue happens also when not performing backups
• Network:
  • I have Gigabit up to my router, and fiber at 50mbps; utilization is typically at idle (even when backing up to network storage or cloud backup).
• GPU:
  • None of the graphs that can be shown indicates something to be utilized more than a couple of %
  • I am running 3x 1080p 60Hz displays, but the computer have handled it before very well (even when I was on a AMD 3800X)
  • GPU Memory (1.9 / 22.0 GB)
    • Dedicated: 1.7 / 6.0 GB
• Temperatures:
  • CPU: ~40C
  • GPU: ~43C

 

While my workload requires a virtual machine (Ubuntu on VirtualBox) along with a couple of other memory hungry programs; the system is easily able to handle all of this, without breaking a sweat, yet I am having this very weird issue.

 

I am very sure there are no virus on my system.

 

Where do I start to diagnose this issue. It's effect is in various applications.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.