GTX 970 Stutter Issues

[JamesBE]

Hi guys,

So a few months ago I decided to do my own gaming build, but after a few weeks of gaming I started to notice stutters in game.
It wasn't that annoying at first, but with some games, it's worse than others. GRID 2, where right timing is of course paramount, is now unplayable for this reason.
But it's not in all games as bad. For instance Crysis3 (all settings on Very High) runs most of the time smooth at like 70-80 fps.

It'll be easiest if I just show you: 

*Note that some of the audio is off because I was recording on the same PC. The GRID 2 footage is probably the most accurate of what is really happening.



 
So I tried all kinds of things to make this issue go away:
I tried disabling SLI. Didn't work.
I tried using one card (in the 16x PCIe slot). Didn't work.
I tried lowering the AA, filters and texture settings. Didn't work.
I tried using another display. Didn't work.
I tried bringing it back to customers service at my local retailer. Didn't work. They found nothing wrong with the system.

So I'm kinda at the limit of my knowledge.
I talked to a buddy of mine, who has a build with 2x770 SLI, and I'm gonna try those in my build. If it does, I'll know for sure, it's the 970's

But until then, if any of you have any suggestions of experience with this, I'd be glad to hear it!

Thanks!
James


Build:
Intel i7 4790K (not overclocked at the moment)
4 x 8GB HyperX Savage HX324C11SRK2/16
Gigabyte GA-Z97X Gaming 5
2 x EVGA GTX 970 Superclocked in SLI
OS on SDD, games on HDD

[Majestic]

If both cards have the same experience (so installing both seperately) I think the issue lies outside of the GTX 970. Scan for malware, clean up the startupfolder check process tab.

Disable firewall/virusscanner...

[Lord_Karango17]

At first glance it seems like a vram issue (I used to get that a lot with my 760's when butting up against the 2gb limit), however your cards have significantly more than 2gb, and im assuming you are not running 4k or something like that.

 

Edit: geez after watching the video, that is like mini freezes, rather than stutter. This may seem odd, but check if the hdd/ssd is being hammered, as i vaguely remember something like that happening when i tried to play games while defragging the hdd. Also check your pagefile size as some games dont like it if the pagefile is disabled/ small.

[JamesBE]

So first of, Majestic, I tried your way.
I check for malware, checked my processes and startup folder, and there is nothing out of the ordinary.

So Karango, I checked my hdd speeds and indeed when I'm in game and the 'freezes' occur, you can see the spikes.

 

Btw, my hdd/sdd is a combo from WD Black^2. So this might be the problem.
They do use a 6Gbps SATA though.

But I think that might be the problem, I'll be testing that tonight.

Thanks!

[JamesBE]

I did a CrystalDiskMark test with the two partitions separately, and these are the results.
Games are running from E: disk. Could that be the problem?

[VortexS]

@Majestic @Lord_Karango17

 

I mentioned you both in case you miss @JamesBE his replies since he didn't quote

[Ellis_D]

I was having major issues running my games off a WD Eco Green.  The issue was from head parking and how the the disk would essentially turn off after 8 seconds of disuse and when the game engine would call on something to be loaded (usually something small like a on-off sound effect or on-screen prompt), the game would hitch while the HDD would spin up to fetch the resource.  I swapped out that drive for Seagate and the problem went away completely.

 

Your best bet for seeing if it is in fact the HDD would be to install a game that's known to stutter onto your SSD and if the problem goes away, then the cause is certainly the power-saving features of your HDD.

[JamesBE]

So that's what I thought @Ellis_D so I reinstalled Grid 2 (which was the most horrible game as you can see) but that didn't do anything.

But that SSD runs over the same SATA connection as the HDD seeing it's a combo with 2 partitions. I don't know if that should/could matter.

I don't have a spare SSD lying around, so I should buy one to test it. But I don't wanna buy one without knowing it's going to work.
I do have a WD Blue spare, but that is going to be the same problem I guess, right?

[Ellis_D]

I just did a quick google search on that drive and it seems like stuttering is a common problem and there is even a firmware update that claims to help the issue (if you're not running the latest firmware already).   But yeah, I'd try it with the spare WD Blue. WD Blues are fortunate in that they're basic HDDs with not a lot of fancy energy saving and data cache features.  I'd also make sure you're Windows power profile is set to not spin down drives when inactive (although energy-efficient drives like the Eco Green will still do this regardless) to cover your bases.

[JamesBE]

Alright, that seems to have done it! Problem lies with the WD Black² hard drive.

Amazing, just had to update the firmware of the hard drive and now everything runs butter smooth as it should!

Seems it wasn't a 970 issue after all!

Thanks guys, and thank you @Ellis_D.

Have a great day!
James
 

[Ellis_D]

No problem.