Systemwide microstuttering

ganglem · January 11, 2024

Hi everyone,

I bought a new system last year and I've been experiencing some microstuttering for a while now.
I've been blaming the websites I visit or the games I play for this performance but after more use, I noticed it's pretty much everywhere. It's happening systemwide on idle.
It's mostly noticeable when I scroll a website, pause to read and then scroll again, scrolling in general, or video playpack. It would stutter for just a second and go back to being smooth but it's getting annoying now, especially since I'm browsing and scrolling a lot. It also happens in Microsoft apps, on the desktop, Chrome, Edge, Firefox etc.
I did update to Windows 11 but I think the problem's also been on Windows 10 - I'm not sure.

This is what I've done to troubleshoot but to no avail:
- downgrade from 546.33 to 537.13 drivers. I know that recent drivers don't mesh well with W11 and there's an upcoming fix, buuut...

- Change to integrated graphics (this made it somehow worse?)
- I tried all of the ANGLE tags and everything but none of them but none of them fixed the microstuttering issue (I've started having these black artifacts in Chrome as well but that's more widespread
- change screen resolution to 1080p
- different mouse, cable mouse (I'm using a BT mouse atm)
- Nvidia settings -> turned on Vsync manually

These are my specs:
Windows 11
4k LG 27UK670 paired witha n HDMI cable, probably the one from my PS4.
i7 13700
RTX 4070 AERO by Gigabyte
32GB RAM @6000Mhz (XPS in)
1TB Samsung NVME

I don't know what else to do. This issue makes me really miserable - I can't really use my PC anymore without noticing it.

SpookyCitrus · January 11, 2024

I'd say it could be a couple things, more testing is required though. First thing that comes to mind is a bad display cable. If possible try a different HDMI cable, buy a newer one if needed, if it is the one that came with your PS4 especially. Not only is it a little older age wise but it could be an older version. Second thing to test or look for is temps, overheating can cause such issues and would also get worse when you switched to the iGPU causing it to run even hotter(CPU would be getting even hotter). Use HWInfo64 and check temps while idle and while under load and post back what they are.