Odd Stutters While Gaming

Tesseract · March 2, 2018

Hello everyone,

I posted here before back in August but was never able to find a solution for my issue. I'm hoping I can this time!

Back in August of 2017 I began to notice I was having some odd stuttering in Path of Exile and League of Legends. Confused as I've never had issues with this system, I opened up HWMonitor. Started to check my temps (even though my case is spotless and I never have overheating issues) and check my voltages, everything looked normal.

Frustrated, I reformatted. Once I did so, I decided to try and set a fan curve within my BIOS instead of using the ASUS Fan Xpert to remove extra software from running. However, I realized I couldn’t do it with DC Fans like I can with the software, so I reset to optimized defaults, then disabled things I don’t use (like onboard WiFi, Bluetooth, etc). I notice the issue is persisting and then I begin to notice my BCLK is acting erratically, which I didn’t notice before the reformat as I assume I didn’t leave HWMonitor running long enough to catch it. My BCLK is going under 100 and over it. I know that's typically "normal" behavior, but this system never did that. The frequencies of my 4790k are reaching as high as 4500 and as low as 760, outside of the normal 800-4400 range. It'll also hit strange frequencies in between as a result of the BCLK, such as 2543 (random number) but it won’t be rounded.

Since then, I've tested nearly every piece of hardware I can think of and have even checked my backup system. The second system seems to be doing the same with the BCLK and I never saw that happening before. It also seems to have odd stutters with League of Legends. I've tested three different PSUs (they're all very similar, one was from an RMA for a faulty fan), a different GPU, motherboard and CPU. I've also ran memtest & I've checked my SSD with Crystal Disk Info & Mark. Nothing has seemed to resolve the issue or shed light on it. I've been completely stumped. I went ahead and chalked it up to the possibility of being something with the power grid in my area; as I know it surges quite frequently in the summer and both systems seem to have similar issues. Maybe this is a software problem as it would make sense since both systems are very identical in terms of what they have on them, but I have no clue what it could be.

So, I ignored it and planned to just build a new system as I’m completely stumped and frustrated. It’s an annoyance, but it isn’t throwing BSOD and the system is still running fairly normally, aside from the odd stutter in some games. For instance, some games such as Doom & Overwatch run flawlessly, but lower end ones will not and will have the stuttering issue. At least, it's not noticeable at all. Whether or not it stutters seems random based off the game.

Deciding to play Path of Exile again, knowing it’s one of the games that runs very poorly on my system since this issue developed, it was fine, but stuttering. Then, it started to do something I haven’t experienced before; it was triggering my ASUS Anti-Surge protection. I assume this is a false positive but I am not sure. Could the low end group PSUs be the culprit all along? It wasn’t doing it before, but it began about a six weeks after I upgraded to a 980Ti.

Recently, while playing World of Warcraft and on Discord with some friends, I noticed every single time they queued up their microphones, it would cause a stutter. On League of Legends, when the text pops up in the center of my screen for "an enemy has slain" or similar text, I'll get a stutter. Similarly, I'll get the same odd stutter on Diablo 3 when achievement text is popping up in the center of my screen, OR if I’m mousing over NPCs for the first time.

None of these issues persisted before August. At least, that’s when I began to notice. I don’t know what it could be and I’m completely at a loss. I assume it could be the PSU at this point because of the Anti-Surge Protection being triggered, most times by Path of Exile, but also once by Heroes of the Storm and once by World of Warcraft. Perhaps that's a fallacy as I've tested three different ones.

I had pretty much given up all hope but figured I shouldn’t give up so easily, something has to be the culprit of this. I just wish my system throw a BSOD or something else, would be loads easier to diagnose!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

NoRomanBatmansAllowed · March 2, 2018

Are you OCed? If so, what happens if you reset BIOS completely?

Tesseract · March 2, 2018

I use to be OC'd through ASUS Multicore Enchancement, but noticed my temps were a bit higher recently for some reason, so I disabled it. This system ran flawlessly for over a year before this started with it enabled. Otherwise, no. The only thing I've done in the BIOS is enable the XMP profile for my memory and disable onboard audio, bluetooth, and the other LAN port. Just things I don't need enabled since I don't use them.

I've also tried disabling all the power saving features & setting a clock at 4GHz but it was still acting strangely. I've reset it since then. Don't recall testing games with it like that but the BCLK was acting odd.