Issue with Mystery Stuttering On High End PC. No fix found after a year of troubleshooting.
Issue with Mystery Stuttering On High End PC. No fix found after a year of troubleshooting.
Hello everyone, I’m coming back after mistakenly marking my last message as solved. I believed my problem was fixed, but it only changed slightly and never disappeared. Over a year ago, I assembled a high-end gaming and workstation PC. Since then, it has been experiencing stuttering in games and on the desktop—sometimes even in the BIOS. The issue looks like this: when moving windows around in the desktop, they pause briefly before resuming. In productivity software, it feels like frames freeze for a moment. While browsing, scrolling causes a brief halt. Every game I play is affected, even simple ones like Cities Skylines, which freezes for a second during camera movement, and audio cuts out. Overwatch 2 runs okay but instead of normal stuttering, it completely freezes for a few seconds, then the screen goes black before returning to normal. The stuttering occurs consistently every few minutes, no matter what I’m doing. I’ve tried all possible fixes—every solution I could think of has failed. I’ve been troubleshooting as much as possible over the past year without success.
Here are my details:
OS: Windows 11
Mobo: Asus Prime Z690 A
CPU: Intel i9 12900kf
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000mhz
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090Ti
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1000W
Storage: 3 Samsung EVO 980 pros. Two 1TB drives and one 2TB drive.
Asus Thunderbolt 3 Card
Cooling: Noctua air cooler
Monitors: 2 Sceptre 1440P 165hz Freesync
Mouse: Razer Naga
Keyboard: Logitech G910
Headset: Also Logitech (model uncertain)
Below is everything I attempted, in order, as far as I remember. Prepare yourself—it’s quite a list.
My first fix was upgrading the PSU from 850W to 1000W, thinking it would push the power beyond limits. No improvement.
Then I experimented with XMP profiles, but they didn’t work. Some comments suggested RAM or CPU issues, and I was advised to update the BIOS. After updating, the problem improved slightly, though not enough.
I explored BIOS power settings, adjusting C states, SpeedStep, SpeedShift, disabling turbo mode, even underclocking the CPU. Still nothing.
Disabling E cores made the issue worse.
I changed every Windows setting imaginable—power plans, startup tasks, apps, registry edits for features like MPO. I also tweaked Nvidia Control Panel settings and ran diagnostics on all hardware. No issues found.
Tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, testing different configurations, but nothing worked.
I even removed graphics drivers with DDU and it didn’t help.
I went through numerous software fixes and finally switched to Windows 10. The stuttering returned when I upgraded to the 22H2 version. Earlier builds of Windows 10 had no stuttering; newer versions caused it. This suggests a compatibility problem.
I installed Ubuntu to test, and it reproduced the same issue.
At this stage, I’m running out of options. My next steps involve reverting my OS to Windows 10. I’ve learned that older Windows versions are stable, but this won’t solve the problem permanently. Eventually, I’ll be stuck with the stuttering again. I’m exhausted and worried about the impact on my work.
Could it simply be that my specific hardware combination isn’t compatible? Or could there be undetected driver conflicts?
A PC I invested a lot in shouldn’t be this unreliable. I’m desperate for a fix without buying a new machine. Any advice would mean a lot to me. Thanks for your time and help.
How often do the stutters occur on the desktop? They should be brief enough between pauses so Latencymon can reveal what's happening.
Latencymon frequently talks about audio, but it's unlikely to be the main issue. You might want to disable audio to check further.
It happens occasionally, but regularly. My Ran latencymon is quite high. It frequently reports a driver problem after running for a while. Most often it mentions an Nvidia driver or a Windows driver. I haven’t explored further than that, and removing the Nvidia drivers didn’t resolve the issue even with DDU.
Share a screenshot of Latencymon, maybe I can assist further, though I'm not sure.
Yeah I can do that after work later. I'll try to post all the different driver errors I get from it since it's several of them.
Also include screenshots of task manager processes for CPU and RAM, ordered from highest to lowest.
This stuttering is generally caused by a hardware problem, particularly involving the GPU. Some resistors or capacitors might not match their original values. Alternatively, the GPU may need to be replaced. Test with another graphics card to see if the issue persists.