Game micro stutters.
Game micro stutters.
Hello there,
This is my first message here. I have an issue that worries me. About three months ago I bought a Lenovo laptop, and recently it has been stuttering during gaming for the past four weeks.
The specifications are: 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1650 (4GB), Intel Core i5-9300H at 2.40GHz, with 1 SSD of 117GB and 1 HDD of 931GB.
At first, everything worked perfectly—games ran smoothly with high FPS. But lately, random micro-stutters have appeared, lasting from 0.5 to 1.5 seconds or even up to 2 seconds. These often occur during intense game moments like explosions or loading screens.
I’m using Speccy and my temperatures are normal, GPU temps between 60-64°C, CPU cores around 65-75°C, and disk temperatures are also good. Network latency is fine, and FPS remains stable. The problem lies in those unpredictable stutters and freezes. I’ve checked Nvidia settings for Physx, which are set to the graphics card.
Task Manager shows my CPU usage can spike up to 100%, mostly stable between 81-85% during games. No background processes overwhelming it, and no malware detected. I’ve tried everything online—disabling the Windows game bar process didn’t help. Running the game in windowed mode lowers CPU usage to 75-80, but it still spikes briefly, with memory usage at 80%. Other programs are running simultaneously during monitoring.
I also updated my BIOS, drivers, and Windows, but nothing fixed it. A defrag of the HDD didn’t work either.
My advice would be to restart the laptop—sometimes it resolves the issue after a while. Even then, temperatures look normal across all components. I’d rather avoid those small freezes than risk damaging such a young machine. It’s frustrating, honestly.
😛
Any suggestions or tests you could recommend?
Your issue might not stem from throttling.
Temperatures are high, yet reaching 100c signals the throttle threshold.
To my knowledge, laptop cooling pads merely improve airflow without significantly lowering temps.
This could still be insufficient.
Another factor is your Windows C drive possibly becoming full.
With 120gb storage, it’s quite limited.
Once a solid-state drive surpasses 90% capacity, free NAND blocks diminish, slowing updates.
For instance, a game checkpoint might take longer to complete.
Upgrading your Windows SSD could be beneficial.
If your HDD is a 5400 rpm model, its performance will suffer.
This would also point toward an SSD upgrade as a solution.
Are you using the 120 GB storage? Does it have a minimum of 20 GB available?
Unfortunately, quad-core/quad-thread issues during gaming are hard to identify.
I’d turn off all cloud services and other background tasks just to rule out any extra processes causing these problems.
If the issue keeps happening after about an hour, it might point to temperature problems or a memory leak—since 8 GB of RAM is now considered quite low.
Thank you for your response. My OS is using an SSD with 53 GB of free space now. I've also tried shutting everything down, including cloud storage, but nothing seems to work. I'm currently tracking the system using HWMonitor instead of Speccy. According to HWMonitor, some CPU cores can spike up to 90 or 85 degrees, which is concerning. However, it's mostly stable at 71-77 degrees, which is also worrying. GPU usage drops to 60%, but Task Manager shows 99%, which seems unusual. I've noticed software leaks, with many processes sharing the same name. I'm not an expert, so I don't know if duplicating processes in Task Manager is normal. The monitoring was done while running Fallout 76. I'm mainly focusing on temperatures.
Maybe a recent Windows update caused the issue.
It’s possible your cooling system is blocked.
I’ve come across many problems with gaming laptops—seemingly tied to overheating and throttling.
Laptop coolers tend to be small and lightweight, which can be a disadvantage.
Use HWmonitor to track your CPU temperatures.
Check if during a session with stutters the maximum temperature reached 100°C.
That would suggest throttling matching your symptoms.
Ensure your cooling paths are free of dust and unobstructed.
You might adjust Windows power settings, limiting the CPU to 90% instead of 100%.
It’s unlikely you’d notice a performance drop, and this could help reduce stuttering.
Thank you for your feedback as well, it means a lot. I lowered the CPU limit to 90% to test it, and I'm currently running it to check its performance over the next two hours. I'm already monitoring with HWmonitor; it looks like the CPU core temperatures are fluctuating frequently. The highest recorded was 89 for at least two cores, while others spiked up to 85, 86, 84, and so on, all above 80. Would you think that a cooling system below the laptop could help? The one I'm using now is barely functioning and it's quite old.
Your issue might not stem from throttling.
Temperatures are high, yet reaching 100c signals the throttle threshold.
To my knowledge, laptop cooling pads merely improve airflow without significantly lowering temps.
This could still be insufficient.
Another factor is your Windows C drive possibly becoming full.
With 120gb storage, it’s quite limited.
Once a solid-state drive surpasses 90% capacity, free NAND blocks diminish, slowing updates.
For instance, a game checkpoint might take longer to complete.
Upgrading your Windows SSD could be beneficial.
If your HDD is a 5400 rpm model, its performance will suffer.
This would also point toward an SSD upgrade as a solution.
I realized what you're referring to regarding the SSD. Does this affect performance when I run and save all my games on the HDD? The SSD is only used for Windows, while general applications like Discord or Skype are stored there too. If the SSD ran out of space, it would likely cause noticeable problems from the beginning. Those in-game freezes and stutters began a few weeks ago, and nothing else has changed.
I also observed that when I quickly switch to the taskbar via Alt+Tab, the CPU usage spikes to 100% before dropping suddenly. My memory usage is consistently high at 88 or 87%. I haven't experienced similar issues before, but there haven't been any changes in installed programs or driver updates.
The only modifications I made before these stutters were updating the Nvidia Geforce Experience driver through the official source and adjusting CPU performance settings in the power plan to maximum levels (90 or 99). These changes didn’t resolve the problem.
Games only run smoothly when I restart my laptop for about 30 minutes to an hour, after which they stabilize. Running in-game also causes more stuttering compared to regular browsing, possibly due to rendering issues.