Incredibly bad screen tearing and stuttering.

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
140
5
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So I built my PC about 8 months ago:

ASROCK z97x Killer
Intel i5 4690k @ stock speeds
GTX 970 @ stock speeds
2x 4GB DDR3 1866 GSKILL SNIPER
256GB Mushkin SSD
Antec 550BP power supply


It ran great when I first assembled it no screen tearing even with VSYNC off no stuttering all my games ran GREAT. So about a month ago I went to apply thermal paste because my temps were high and uneven across each core and when I did I noticed I had 4 or 5 bent pins on the motherboard socket. I did some research and it turned out those 4 or 5 pins were grounds and my PC booted and seemed to work fine so I kept running it. About a week ago I bought a 1TB Seagate 7200RPM HDD off a buddy for $20 and I plugged it in and formatted windows. Biggest mestake of my life, because now every game I play has stuttering and terrible screen tear, I cant even play ARMA 3 without VSYNC anymore because screen tearing is so bad the game stutters if I use VSYNC its smooth as butter. CSGO used to run fine but now it stutters as well, Dark Souls II has screen tear and never used to basically all my games are unplayable. The weird thing is my FPS in CSGO is like 300 my FPS in ARMA is between 40 and 100 etc. etc. my pings are all low I havnt done anything out of the ordinary that I havnt done in the last 8 months. Like literally I've ran 3dmark and I got a 9500 (which seems about right.) all my FPS seem right in games so im not having any performance issues just this damn screen tearing stuttering! So right now I'm debating if it's my motherboard (which I dont know because im not sure when or how the pins got bent could have been last time i applied paste could have been the first time i assembled the pc....) or it's my Power supply but that doesnt make sense either because I've rant his PSU for nearly 8 months. or it's my GPU but this is my second one I already RMA'd one for artifacting and whatnot so its a brand spankin new card. ASROCK said they would replace my board and only charge me $50 so I guess I'll do that but if I do that and reassemble my whole PC and it's still doing this im going to freak out!

So heres what I've tried:

I did try VSYNC adaptive and non adaptive, this works in ALL of my games the oonly problem is I cant use it in CSGO because of input lag and I cannot use it in arma 3 because i vary rarely hold 60fps so the game becomes choppy.

I reinstalled drivers including trying old and new ones
I formatted and tried a different OS twice.
I checked my TDP on my GPU and it never goes over 80%
I calculated my power consumption and my 550w should be fine (like I said vie ran it 8 months fine.)
I tried messing around in NVIDIA control panel tried setting fps cap to 59 and all that good stuff capping my FPS actually make the games more choppy.
I reset my BIOS and updated them.
I RMA'd my GPU already once for artifacting so I have a brand new GPU basically hasnt artifacted once.
I tried a different cable and slot on my GPU and messed with my monitor settings.


I'm at a loss, I'm about to send my motherboard back to get a replacement and I'm about to go out and buy a 750w Bronze PSU but before I spend all that money I would like to know if any of you have suggestions.

PLEASE DONT TELL ME TO ENABLE VSYNC I HAVE im aware screen tearing is part of all games and sometimes it can be worse in some games than others. But I have been using this PC for 8 months and I tell you 100% that the screen tearing and stuttering were not NEARLY this bad I'm telling you games are almost unplayable without vsync and I've never used vsync in my life.

I really dont know what to do and its really pissing me off because I just put around $1400 into building this and im already having problems 8 months later and I cant even enjoy my games :( please help me guys. I'm going to try and get a video of what it looks like so you can all see that its not NORMAL screen tearing, its more of a stutter like the screen tears and it makes everything look likeits stuttering.
 
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DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,494
2,120
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honestly, it could be a crappy, near-death drive that is running into bad sectors constantly.

windows tries to "repair" a bad sector every time it runs into one, instead of blacklisting them, so horrid hardware lags. i had this with a drive a couple years back.
 

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
140
5
46
honestly, it could be a crappy, near-death drive that is running into bad sectors constantly.

windows tries to "repair" a bad sector every time it runs into one, instead of blacklisting them, so horrid hardware lags. i had this with a drive a couple years back.

I just removed the SEAGATE 1TB and it made no difference I also reseated the GPU, reconnected the PSU cables, I reseated the RAM and I made sure the HSF was secure. NONE of these worked.
 

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
140
5
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS0cwUdn6Z0


Theres the video of ARMA 3 with the screen tearing. As you can see I get around 70FPS but its really juttery and tons of tearing and lots of stuttering, it's REALLY HARD to see in the video but its exponentially worse in person its basically unplayable like im getting microstutter. IF you look around .35 - .36 seconds in thats where you can really see it stuttering on the right side. If you look on the right side of the video you can see the most tearing and stuttering its like I have low FPS but I dont and this is how MOST of my games are... CSGO, Dark Souls II, ARMA 3. Killing floor 2 actually isnt that bad. so I dont know if its hardware or software... It was NEVER like this before at all games were smooth even without vsync.
 
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Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,545
236
106
If the board is under warranty, I would try to RMA it. I say try because they may or may not try to pass blame for that onto you. The only way to know it to try.

Now, whether or not that is the cause of the problem, hard to say. But the CPU most certainly still plays a roll in the gaming experience, so this is what I would go after first.
 

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
140
5
46
If the board is under warranty, I would try to RMA it. I say try because they may or may not try to pass blame for that onto you. The only way to know it to try.

Now, whether or not that is the cause of the problem, hard to say. But the CPU most certainly still plays a roll in the gaming experience, so this is what I would go after first.

Yeah I talked to them and they say they cannot RMA the board with physical damage as it's not under warranty. But $50 isn't too bad for a $150 motherboard considering it was probably my fault they bent. The thing is I'm not sure if they bent 8 months ago, I've reseated my HSF like 3-4 times and I just noticed the bent pins last time I reseated it.

My Power Supply is good enough right? I have 2 HDD, and 10 case fans.
 

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
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Last edited:

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,545
236
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I mean I don't get BSOD's or random shut downs honestly its just the games with screen tearing and stuttering regular browsing and whatnot seems normal. and it doesnt happen over time its instantly any game I load up.

Yeah, you don't have symptoms of losing power. I mainly suggest the motherboard because, even for the price, it's worth it IMO to get that taken care of.

I do have a suggestion though: take out the video card and try some games with the GPU on the 4690k. That should help you determine if the bent pins are causing the screen tearing.

I also will say that I didn't notice anything I would describe as tearing in your video. I noticed an issue with the building on your left, but I don't know what that building is supposed to look like.
 

user1193526

Junior Member
Sep 21, 2014
17
0
0
take almost all online opinions with a grain of salt.

I havn't gamed in a while, but unless something has drastically changed...

there use to be options In your Advanced Display Settings, In your case Nvidia Advanced Settings, somewhere.. that would allow you to changed all the settings, Including VSYNC to On/Off/ApplicationControlled... IF you previously DId Not have it on 'ApplicationControlled' and just had it 'ON', you may have been running with VSYNC the entire time without even realizing it Untill now, even if your InGame options say OFF, NVIDIA/AdvancedDisplay settings will override it.

Also you never mentioned if you were/are running with TrippleBuffering ON or OFF.. TrippleBuffering affects only FullScreen Mode, but fixes a lot if not all the screen tearing in full screen mode, without the overhead of VSYNC.

Like i said Iv been out of gaming fora long time, but perhaps these may still exist or have comperable settings available... There also use to be D3D Render Ahead frame's, In the Advanced Nvidia settings, which acomplish similar if not same affect as TrippleBuffering.

people randomly over the years have posted about bent cpu pin issues... It always seemed to turn out that if it wasn't damaged and just bent not Too badly.. and if you have a steady enough hand you can simply bend them back without incident.

you list an SSD in your specs, if you don't mind me asking, why did you reformat your OS when you smiply added the 1T HDD ?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,340
10,044
126
there use to be options In your Advanced Display Settings, In your case Nvidia Advanced Settings, somewhere.. that would allow you to changed all the settings, Including VSYNC to On/Off/ApplicationControlled... IF you previously DId Not have it on 'ApplicationControlled' and just had it 'ON', you may have been running with VSYNC the entire time without even realizing it Untill now, even if your InGame options say OFF, NVIDIA/AdvancedDisplay settings will override it.
That's along the lines of what I was thinking had happened.
 

Crescendo

Member
Sep 30, 2014
140
5
46
Ok so I sent my motherboard out got a new one put it all back together and the problem is still there... I'm about to RMA my card yet again for a second time the ONLY thing I can think of that would cause this is the card or the PSU possibly could be related to a cable or the monitor but I havn't changed a single thing and it does it on HDMI with an HDMI cable so I ruled that out...

This is so frustrating all my games were silky smooth with VERY MINIMAL screen tearing and then next thing I know all my games run like crap and ARMA 3 is unplayable... I'm about to scrap this whole build and start fresh.

/e I know for a fact 100% I never had VSYNC forced on in NVIDIA settings because I always turn that off immediatly as I cannot stand the input lag it gives.. So I know I never had vsync enabled.
 

JutsuFn

Junior Member
Jan 26, 2021
13
0
6
Bro if you fixed that please tell me how did you solve it because I have the same issue
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
28,486
20,572
146
Bro if you fixed that please tell me how did you solve it because I have the same issue
LOL OP has not even logged in since 2017.

Start your own thread, and list full system specs and any troubleshooting you have done, just as the OP did.