Hello, I have posted this help thread in a few forums but nobody seems to be able to find a solution to my problem. Below I have a few videos to barely show what I am experiencing along with all of my trouble shooting steps. I have replaced everything in this computer except the CPU and motherboard. Maybe this old setup has degraded to a point where it is stuttering, but why does it pass every test on the on the internet with flying colors? I'm hoping someone here knows of a voltage or setting that I can bump up to cure this problem.
The problem is more of a micro stutter but I'm only using one GPU and it happens in many games and benchmarks. Online players skip around, animations are choppy and it looks like frames are being skipped. 120fps looks like 40 fps. This can be felt with mouse movement as well.
The system:
i7 920 @ 3507MHz (stutter happens with optimized defaults as well)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R-SLI with the latest beta bios
3x2GB Corsair 1600 ram running at 1336 MHz
Stock GTX 460
Creative x-fi xtremegamer
Windows 8 pro 64 bit
Samsung 840 SSD + Western Digital WD6401AALS 640GB mechanical hard drive
Seasonic Platinum 660XP 660w power supply
Example with the vantage CPU test showing the planes skip around and even rewind for a split second: I used afterburner to record this and it only lowered the score, it didn't add any extra stutter.
To troubleshoot my GPU,
I RMA'd it through MSI and the replacement changed nothing. I got a third GTX 460, this time from ASUS, again nothing changed. All three of these GTX 460s passed all benchmarks, EVGA oc scanner and OCCT artifact scanner. I tried using the second PCIE slot but again nothing changed. I also went out and purchased a Gigabyte 7850 but it still showed this weird stutter. Both problems exist with my older 60Hz monitor with a replacement dual DVI cable.
To troubleshoot my processor, ram and motherboard
I ran prime95 blend for almost 19 hours, long enough to pass all of the tests with 90% memory usage and no errors were found. I passed 10 runs of IBT at max without an error. It passed OCCT's 1 hour test. I also left the PC to fold overnight but it was still happily folding on a second work unit when I got up. Overnight memtest86+ AND memtest86 came back with no errors. I ran HCI memtest to 1450% without errors. I also made sure to test the stutter problem with everything running stock by loading optimized defaults but that didn't help. I also tried a second memory kit from OCZ that also passes these tests but the stutter was still there. The highest temperature was 61c and that was during IBT. I tried running the ram with very loose timings just in case but again no change. I tested with Hyperthreading disabled. I added a couple more bumps of VTT and Vcore.
I flashed to different bios versions including the latest beta bios for my motherboard. I tried disabling all power saving features in the bios.
To troubleshoot my hard drive
The hard drive is currently running in AHCI mode but I have also tried IDE mode. I have also tried using the Microsoft AHCI drivers and the Intel drivers but there isn't a difference between them. Iran the Western Digital advanced diagnostics twice and neither showed any errors. The smart data is also all OK without any warnings. I also replaced sata cables and swapped to alternative sata ports. I purchased a Samsung 840 SSD and the problem remains with a fresh install on it as well.
To troubleshoot my power supply
I replaced my XFX 650w XXX power supply with the Seasonic platinum 660XP but nothing changed.
To troubleshoot my network
I mentioned this above but ill add it here too. I had my ISP come out and test my lines and they said everything was fine. I bypassed all cable splitters. I bypassed my router and tried a new modem with replacement ethernet cords but the problem remained. I installed an Intel PCI network card in case my motherboards port was failing but yet again, nothing was changed. I even tried using a wireless USB adapter.
To troubleshoot the OS and drivers
I tried the default windows update drivers for my network adapter as well as the newest available from Realtek. I tried clean installing many whql Nvidia drivers in vista and windows 8. I tried reformatting and installing chipset drivers as well as reformatting again without installing chipset drivers. I have tried enabling and disabling HPET in both the bios and windows. With windows using HPET 64 bit the DPC latency is very low. I have 8 tabs open in Firefox, one of them is a 1080p youtube video playing and another one is pandora playing music and the DPC latency is 5-15 in LatencyMon.
To troubleshoot audio
I pulled my sound card out and removed the drivers. I made sure the integrated sound card was disabled in the bios and drivers for it were never installed. Both problems remained without sound.
What's left to troubleshoot? Did I overlook something?
The only hardware that hasn't been swapped out is the CPU and motherboard.
Could the CPU or motherboard be causing this problem but still pass every stress test that I throw at it? Unfortunately I can't find any cheap X58 boards to buy. The benchmark scores seem to be normal and where they should be. Gigabyte said that they didn't have any refurbished motherboards for me to purchase.
CPU is at 3507 MHz and the ram is at 1336 MHz.
Cinebench 10 = 20264 multithread and 4938 single thread.
Cinebench 11.5 = 6.02 multithread and 1.19 singe thread.
The frustrating thing is that this PC hasn't blue screened or frozen since I have been experiencing these problems. Zero WHEA errors as well. I just don't get it. Please help before I just give up and find a new hobby.
The system:
i7 920 @ 3507MHz (stutter happens with optimized defaults as well)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R-SLI with the latest beta bios
3x2GB Corsair 1600 ram running at 1336 MHz
Stock GTX 460
Creative x-fi xtremegamer
Windows 8 pro 64 bit
Samsung 840 SSD + Western Digital WD6401AALS 640GB mechanical hard drive
Seasonic Platinum 660XP 660w power supply
Example with the vantage CPU test showing the planes skip around and even rewind for a split second: I used afterburner to record this and it only lowered the score, it didn't add any extra stutter.
To troubleshoot my GPU,
I RMA'd it through MSI and the replacement changed nothing. I got a third GTX 460, this time from ASUS, again nothing changed. All three of these GTX 460s passed all benchmarks, EVGA oc scanner and OCCT artifact scanner. I tried using the second PCIE slot but again nothing changed. I also went out and purchased a Gigabyte 7850 but it still showed this weird stutter. Both problems exist with my older 60Hz monitor with a replacement dual DVI cable.
To troubleshoot my processor, ram and motherboard
I ran prime95 blend for almost 19 hours, long enough to pass all of the tests with 90% memory usage and no errors were found. I passed 10 runs of IBT at max without an error. It passed OCCT's 1 hour test. I also left the PC to fold overnight but it was still happily folding on a second work unit when I got up. Overnight memtest86+ AND memtest86 came back with no errors. I ran HCI memtest to 1450% without errors. I also made sure to test the stutter problem with everything running stock by loading optimized defaults but that didn't help. I also tried a second memory kit from OCZ that also passes these tests but the stutter was still there. The highest temperature was 61c and that was during IBT. I tried running the ram with very loose timings just in case but again no change. I tested with Hyperthreading disabled. I added a couple more bumps of VTT and Vcore.
I flashed to different bios versions including the latest beta bios for my motherboard. I tried disabling all power saving features in the bios.
To troubleshoot my hard drive
The hard drive is currently running in AHCI mode but I have also tried IDE mode. I have also tried using the Microsoft AHCI drivers and the Intel drivers but there isn't a difference between them. Iran the Western Digital advanced diagnostics twice and neither showed any errors. The smart data is also all OK without any warnings. I also replaced sata cables and swapped to alternative sata ports. I purchased a Samsung 840 SSD and the problem remains with a fresh install on it as well.
To troubleshoot my power supply
I replaced my XFX 650w XXX power supply with the Seasonic platinum 660XP but nothing changed.
To troubleshoot my network
I mentioned this above but ill add it here too. I had my ISP come out and test my lines and they said everything was fine. I bypassed all cable splitters. I bypassed my router and tried a new modem with replacement ethernet cords but the problem remained. I installed an Intel PCI network card in case my motherboards port was failing but yet again, nothing was changed. I even tried using a wireless USB adapter.
To troubleshoot the OS and drivers
I tried the default windows update drivers for my network adapter as well as the newest available from Realtek. I tried clean installing many whql Nvidia drivers in vista and windows 8. I tried reformatting and installing chipset drivers as well as reformatting again without installing chipset drivers. I have tried enabling and disabling HPET in both the bios and windows. With windows using HPET 64 bit the DPC latency is very low. I have 8 tabs open in Firefox, one of them is a 1080p youtube video playing and another one is pandora playing music and the DPC latency is 5-15 in LatencyMon.
To troubleshoot audio
I pulled my sound card out and removed the drivers. I made sure the integrated sound card was disabled in the bios and drivers for it were never installed. Both problems remained without sound.
What's left to troubleshoot? Did I overlook something?
The only hardware that hasn't been swapped out is the CPU and motherboard.
Could the CPU or motherboard be causing this problem but still pass every stress test that I throw at it? Unfortunately I can't find any cheap X58 boards to buy. The benchmark scores seem to be normal and where they should be. Gigabyte said that they didn't have any refurbished motherboards for me to purchase.
CPU is at 3507 MHz and the ram is at 1336 MHz.
Cinebench 10 = 20264 multithread and 4938 single thread.
Cinebench 11.5 = 6.02 multithread and 1.19 singe thread.
The frustrating thing is that this PC hasn't blue screened or frozen since I have been experiencing these problems. Zero WHEA errors as well. I just don't get it. Please help before I just give up and find a new hobby.
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