Device exhibits irregular pauses and unexpected power cuts.
Device exhibits irregular pauses and unexpected power cuts.
The video demonstrating my problem is here. (Sorry about my poor driving—I was in a car that tends to snap oversteer, and I’m not used to it.) I’ve been experiencing stuttering on my PC for about a year and a half now. It follows a pattern with sudden lag spikes. My computer often shuts down completely and restarts without any apparent cause. Clearly, from the video I’m into sim racing, so I can’t compete effectively due to these interruptions. I know the power supply, graphics card, and temperatures aren’t the issue. There are no visible arcs on the motherboard, and dusting hasn’t helped. The lag spikes might stem from my 5400 rpm 2TB hard drive, though a friend who uses an external 5400 rpm HD through USB has no problems. Instead of replacing all components myself, someone could help me identify what’s faulty and suggest a fix. Would you mind checking if others have faced the same problem and if they have a solution?
Just attribute it to the stuttering, that’s what I would have tried. Usually big stutters seen in that video point to a CPU limitation. But it doesn’t always happen and might be another issue. Trying a straightforward approach seems best at this point. Save HWInfo64, switch it to sensors-only mode (it will prompt for this on first launch), and locate the “Create Log” button near the bottom right labeled something like “Create Log.” This logs sensor activity and usage, making it simple to spot problems later. If you need more clarity, check the full system details—knowing exact specs can help narrow down the cause.
I own an i5 8400 built on a Gigabyte Z370 HD3 with 16 GB DDR4 2666 RAM (brand uncertain). It’s paired with an Evga 2060 display. My power supply is a 650 BSM unit, which I replaced two years ago after upgrading my GPU. I have a 500 GB SSD and a hard drive mentioned.
XMP is turned off. DDR4 supports double data rate, so the real speed you're seeing is 2400MT/s. Many manufacturers confuse memory speed units—often they mean megatransfers per second instead of megahertz, which would make the number half what it seems. A 166MT/s difference in clock speed won’t significantly affect performance, so that’s unlikely the cause. I’m reviewing the data and don’t notice major system problems or lag spikes. Your GPU stays under 60% usage during testing, suggesting a CPU bottleneck isn’t the main issue. The only clear pattern is a big read spike on the 2TB HDD, which could point to storage limitations, though that’s rare. Spoiler: GPU load is usually red, CPU core usage green, and 2TB HDD activity blue. There’s another small dip matching a slight CPU slowdown, but nothing conclusive. This seems odd. If I had to guess, it might be memory or HDD-related, or possibly a software problem with the racing sim. Since memory bottlenecks are trickier to fix and CPU IMC can also play a role, I’d first test the SSD and check if others report similar issues with that game to rule out poor optimization.