Unknown unexpected stops. Assistance needed!
Unknown unexpected stops. Assistance needed!
UPDATE (December 9): I suspect I may have identified the cause. Temporarily silenced the interrupts by following these steps: accessed BIOS and selected XMP profile 2 (3733MHz CL17) instead of the default 1 (3866MHz CL18). (In fact, I ended up with 3726.6MHz CL18.) Set the FCLK to half the memory clock (1866MHz) to meet the recommended 1:1 ratio. This morning, however, HWiNFO displayed FCLK oscillating above its intended frequency (occasionally reaching 2027 MHz, likely an incorrect reading). UCLK remained steady at 1866MHz. I restarted my PC this evening, and everything functioned normally again. It appears my BIOS occasionally misapplies FCLK settings during boot. Perhaps I should abandon XMP and adjust the RAM manually. UPDATE 2: FCLK may begin fluctuating unexpectedly after prolonged operation. Disabling the computer, unplugging it from power, and then reconnecting resolves the problem. UPDATE 3 [RESOLVED]: Disabled DF C-States in BIOS, which stopped the unusual behavior. Minor stutters persist occasionally. Original post below. The problem: I recently assembled a new gaming PC in October (listed specs). On November 10th, I applied a BIOS update for my Asus TUF X570-Plus Wi-Fi board (version v1404, 2019/11/08). Two days later, after a brief inactivity period, I began experiencing frequent stutters across all games—freezing for about 20 seconds before resuming normal play. Minecraft was more affected than others. I’m certain all drivers are current (graphics, chipset, networking, Wi-Fi, audio, etc.), Windows 10 is up to date, and system temps stay below 70°C even under heavy load. CPU and GPU utilization remain normal, hitting expected frequencies during gameplay. XMP (DOCP for Asus boards) correctly sets RAM speeds and timings (3866MHz CL18). All connectors and cables are securely connected. Benchmarking with MSI Afterburner consistently shows a minor low-frame drop (10–20 FPS), which is unusually low given average game framerates. My RTX 2070 Super produces a slight coil whine during gameplay (normal). During micro-stutters, the buzzing ceases briefly, suggesting a temporary GPU shutdown. Alt-tabbing out of games without closing them can cause general sluggishness. Rebooting several times resolves the issue temporarily, allowing normal gameplay again, though not all titles run flawlessly. Boot times have increased to about a minute, rather than the expected 10 seconds from my SSD. Occasionally, after reboots, I encounter a black screen with the motherboard’s DRAM LED illuminated (potentially a memory fault). Windows Memory Diagnostic found no errors. LatencyMon reports high latency from DirectX and Nvidia drivers, but this seems unrelated to the stutters. 3DMark scores are below average, possibly due to a specific game action—opening an NPC’s item store in SoT (may be coincidental). I’ve tried resetting BIOS settings and reapplying XMP, re-downloading the BIOS, clearing CMOS by removing the board’s battery, reinstalling Windows 10 via Media Creation Tool, uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, closing background processes, performing a full disk wipe and clean install from BIOS using a USB stick. I’ve manually reinstalled my software and games. Only driver updates via the motherboard utility (Asus Armoury Crate) and GPU driver (GeForce Experience) have improved stability. The problem persists, so I’m holding off on further fixes until a new BIOS release is available. (November 27) Updated BIOS to v1405 and refreshed AMD X570 chipset drivers—no improvement. Specific details: CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X Board: Asus TUF X570-Plus Wi-Fi RAM: Viper Steel 16GB 3866MHz C18 SSD: Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVMe HDD: None GPU: MSI Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt 650 Chassis: Cooler Master H500 OS: Windows 10 Pro 1909)