Could my PSU cause micro-stutter in games?

[OmriJ]

 

Over the last year+ or so I noticed some sort of micro-stutter in games. I thought it was because my computer was built in 2010 and it has now worn out, but today I noticed in HWMonitor that the voltage on certain spots drops more than what it should.

I went into GTA V (a game in which I noticed that the stuttering is very consistent and often) started a benchmark and watched HWMonitor.

The first minute or so of benchmark was fine, ~45-50 fps no stuttering, voltages all normal but then when I saw the first stutter I noticed the CPU wattage dropped from 117.60 to 20.50 (overall fps looked about the same, no dips or drops or anything). Right after that stuttering became very often, and dips in voltage and wattage as well. here is a picture of the HWMonitor:

 

Computer specs:

Win7 64 bit

AMD 955 CPU

Sapphire 6950 2gb GPU

GIGABYTE 890GPA-UD3H

8G Ram

And the PSU is SeaSonic 600W Active PFC 80+ (SS-600ET)

If anything else is needed to determine anything, please let me know. Thank you very much in advance to everyone who helps.

(P.S, I could record the screen as the benchmark is running to explain better what I mean by micro-stuttering)

[The Sloth]

update all drivers and see if that helps, psu can if it doesn't deliver enough power but more issue would occur. 

[OmriJ]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

update all drivers and see if that helps, psu can if it doesn't deliver enough power but more issue would occur. 

Drivers are all caught up. First thing I tried.

Now that I look at it, when stuttering happens the FPS does drop pretty significantly ~20 FPS drop (from 60 to 40 or 80 to 60)

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, OmriJ said:

Drivers are all caught up. First thing I tried.

Now that I look at it, when stuttering happens the FPS does drop pretty significantly ~20 FPS drop (from 60 to 40 or 80 to 60)

 

get a new power supply if you can. 

[weberdarren97]

PSU can cause problems, but usually they're more severe than microstutter.

 

Here's where I'd focus my attention:

1) Drivers

2) Something's overheating?

3) Balance between CPU, RAM (dual channel?), and graphics card

4) Faulty memory

 

Also, software voltage monitoring is not reliable. Even in BIOS, there's no guarantee the readings are accurate. There's a lot that goes on before the voltage from the PSU makes it to the sensors, and you can't be sure those sensors are very reliable in the first place.

[OmriJ]

1 minute ago, weberdarren97 said:

PSU can cause problems, but usually they're more severe than microstutter.

 

Here's where I'd focus my attention:

1) Drivers

2) Something's overheating?

3) Balance between CPU, RAM (dual channel?), and graphics card

4) Faulty memory

 

Also, software voltage monitoring is not reliable. Even in BIOS, there's no guarantee the readings are accurate. There's a lot that goes on before the voltage from the PSU makes it to the sensors, and you can't be sure those sensors are very reliable in the first place.

CPU is ~78 degrees celcius at load and GPU ~70-80. Although I dont think thats the case because thats how it always been since I got that pc.

RAM is 2 sticks of 2GB and one of 4. I dont think that is the case as well because the extra ram stick was added couple years back and stuttering is "newer"

How do I check for faulty memory?

Here is a video of the benchmark. First stutter and Wattage drop is @0:20 seconds, and in the Airplane scene it is pretty visible.

 

[weberdarren97]

1 minute ago, OmriJ said:

CPU is ~78 degrees celcius at load and GPU ~70-80. Although I dont think thats the case because thats how it always been since I got that pc.

RAM is 2 sticks of 2GB and one of 4. I dont think that is the case as well because the extra ram stick was added couple years back and stuttering is "newer"

How do I check for faulty memory?

Here is a video of the benchmark. First stutter and Wattage drop is @0:20 seconds, and in the Airplane scene it is pretty visible.

1) While 78C is a somewhat comfortable temperature for Intel, it's well above comfortable temperatures for your CPU. Clean out your CPU cooler, exhaust fans, etc.

2) You have an odd number of sticks, it's operating in single channel mode. While this isn't a huge problem, it's likely contributing a small amount to your issues.

3) Do you have an internet connection and a USB drive that you don't mind wiping to install a bootup program called Memtest86 onto? http://www.memtest86.com/

4) Video is still processing. I'll be able to view it later once YouTube pulls its act together.

[weberdarren97]

10 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

get a new power supply if you can. 

What would have happened if he spent the money on a new power supply and then it didn't solve his issue because it's a heat issue with his CPU?

 

I come from Tom's Hardware. On their site, the threads usually go for longer than what I've seen on this site because the users on Tom's take extra time to verify the cause of the issue before trying to resolve it.

 

I'm not mad at you and I'm not trying to rant, I'm simply saying that next time I would recommend taking more time to familiarize yourself with what's going on inside the machine before jumping to conclusions. Although asking OP for more information uses his time and yours, it's better than him spending money on something he doesn't really need.

[weberdarren97]

So the video just loaded for me. Your CPU is throttling, turning down its performance in an effort to reduce heat output and prevent from melting.

[OmriJ]

9 minutes ago, weberdarren97 said:

So the video just loaded for me. Your CPU is throttling, turning down its performance in an effort to reduce heat output and prevent from melting.

I always thought 80 deg is too high, only recently I began liking the hardware thing and getting into it.

I'm running the cpu at stock speed and stock cooling over it. I ordered a 212x evo about a week ago and it should arrive soon.  I applied a new thermal a month ago and it didnt show any improvement.

So, in your opinion, the 212x should do the trick?

[weberdarren97]

1 minute ago, OmriJ said:

So, in your opinion, the 212x should do the trick?

Yep. Make sure to clean the existing thermal paste off the CPU. The cooler should have paste already applied.

[OmriJ]

32 minutes ago, weberdarren97 said:

Yep. Make sure to clean the existing thermal paste off the CPU. The cooler should have paste already applied.

Should I replace the stock thermal paste you are saying is already applied with a Arcticsilver 5? I Have a tube lying around from the last time I reapplied it

[Coldfuson]

26 minutes ago, OmriJ said:

Should I replace the stock thermal paste you are saying is already applied with a Arcticsilver 5? I Have a tube lying around from the last time I reapplied it

The stock paste on the stock cooler? If you didn't remove it before reapplying new thermal paste then that would be your issues right there. Also, not 100% sure but your voltages seem really high for stock clock speeds. I would confirm with someone more familiar with the AMD chipset. 

[weberdarren97]

That's a good point. Voltages are pretty high. I usually don't go above 1.35V for overclocking, so 1.39V is much higher than I'd be comfortable with for stock clocks.

 

Is this CPU overclocked? If so, you didn't do your daily dose of research before jumping into BIOS. If you overclocked via software within Windows, just, no.

 

Uninstall any overclocking utilities you've installed within Windows, go into BIOS and do a Load Optimized Defaults.

[OmriJ]

44 minutes ago, weberdarren97 said:

That's a good point. Voltages are pretty high. I usually don't go above 1.35V for overclocking, so 1.39V is much higher than I'd be comfortable with for stock clocks.

 

Is this CPU overclocked? If so, you didn't do your daily dose of research before jumping into BIOS. If you overclocked via software within Windows, just, no.

 

Uninstall any overclocking utilities you've installed within Windows, go into BIOS and do a Load Optimized Defaults.

Did not overclock. Did optimized defaults and the normal cpu vcore is 1.4v as you can see down below

[Quinnbeast]

3 hours ago, OmriJ said:

Right after that stuttering became very often, and dips in voltage and wattage as well.

It's very likely that the power being supplied by the PSU is dropping because of the stutter, and is not itself causing the stutter. The PSU will typically supply whatever is required by the attached components; if your system drops it's output / frame-rate / whatever, then the PSU will accordingly supply less power.

[weberdarren97]

Wow. Man you really lost the silicon lottery. I don't usually push it that high on anything (even AMD) unless I'm aiming for an extreme overclock.

[weberdarren97]

2 minutes ago, Quinnbeast said:

It's very likely that the power being supplied by the PSU is dropping because of the stutter, and is not itself causing the stutter. The PSU will typically supply whatever is required by the attached components; if your system drops it's output / frame-rate / whatever, then the PSU will accordingly supply less power.

Close enough. The power supply supplies up to its wattage limitation, but its up to the system to actually draw that power out of the PSU. If system power consumption drops for any reason, it means less power being pulled out of the PSU.

 

If you read CPU, it was a mistype. I meant PSU.

[OmriJ]

6 minutes ago, weberdarren97 said:

Wow. Man you really lost the silicon lottery. I don't usually push it that high on anything (even AMD) unless I'm aiming for an extreme overclock.

I manually undervoltaged to 1.35, ran the benchmarks and it appears to have no stutters at all. Plus, max cpu temps were 72 w/o any throttling

I guess I will keep the settings this way, and once I get my 212x temps would go even lower

So I guess it was just thermal throttling. Thank you so very much everyone who helped!

[weberdarren97]

As we say on Tom's... Glad to help, happy posting!

[weberdarren97]

I'm actually an Eternal Champion and whatnot on Tom's Hardware, but started here on LTT forum because A) Tom's site has been having problems recently and B) one of the moderators mistook my relation with another user as me trying to "play moderator" and banned my account for three days. But hey, I'm not going to argue with the Tom's mods, they dished out punishment and I guess I should just take it even though it seems unfair from my perspective.

[OmriJ]

4 minutes ago, weberdarren97 said:

I'm actually an Eternal Champion and whatnot on Tom's Hardware, but started here on LTT forum because A) Tom's site has been having problems recently and B) one of the moderators mistook my relation with another user as me trying to "play moderator" and banned my account for three days. But hey, I'm not going to argue with the Tom's mods, they dished out punishment and I guess I should just take it even though it seems unfair from my perspective.

 

Should I feel bad for being happy you got banned? If it wasn't for this, I could have ended up with an extra power supply and still one overheated-overvoltaged cpu

[weberdarren97]

I probably would have ended up joining this forum at some point, but you're right, that was good coincidence. I enjoy watching tech YouTube channels while I do my work. I usually watch BitWit (I sometimes refer to him as DimWit), JayzTwoCents, Salazar Studio (formerly Science Studio), RedGamingTech, RandomGamingInHD, all of Linus Media Group's channels, etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to help. I know how frustrating it is to be in a situation that you yourself don't know how to resolve.

[Quinnbeast]

1 hour ago, weberdarren97 said:

Close enough. The power supply supplies up to its wattage limitation, but its up to the system to actually draw that power out of the PSU. If system power consumption drops for any reason, it means less power being pulled out of the PSU.

 

If you read CPU, it was a mistype. I meant PSU.

I quoted and replied to the OP. We appear to be in agreement don't we?

[weberdarren97]

15 minutes ago, Quinnbeast said:

I quoted and replied to the OP. We appear to be in agreement don't we?

I'd say we're in agreement.

 

While we're both online... Does LTT forums have anything resembling the Tom's Hardware badge system? Or does it at least have some sort of ranking system? BTW, I love the reputation system this site has going for it.