Question Need help fixing random stuttering / freezing especially during and after a gaming session

[KiritoMJ]

Hello, for about 3 weeks now I have been getting random stuttering in performance randomly when I play games and it effect post gaming as well until I restart and it will reset until I play again, the issue happens at random where my GPU usage goes down dramatically and causes my game to freeze for a second or two.

I have tried replacing some parts from my old PC such as Graphic card, Storage, Motherboard, and RAM and done so many tests to try and figure out the source of the problem but no luck, I have checked the temperature while gaming CPU about 70° while GPU is about 55-58°, I have checked the RAM usage and storage during gameplay and normally, nothing out of the ordinary no tasks eating any resources except the game and it's mostly normal.

All the Drivers and Windows is up to date!, I also did some benchmark with 3DMark basic while HWinfo64 is logging in the background here is the file containing screenshots and log file: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ApJT6lMwasNK6RI4mesJ9N4oz1uFGcQ?usp=sharing

I would love to get some help with my situation as it has been hell to deal with.

My specs:
GPU: MSI 1060 6GB
CPU: Ryzen 2600
RAM: 16GB 2 x 8 DDR4
Motherboard: MSI Grenade A320M
Storage: 1TB HDD Seagate Barracuda, 240 SSD Kingston A400
PSU: Fractal Design Essence 600w
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64Bit

 

[charlietee]

If you have not. A good place to start is Display Driver Uninstall
DDU Display Uninstaller.
Download the DDU Guide/Tutorial.
DDU Guide/Tutorial

This will allow you to delete any previous GPU drivers. Since you are running Windows 10, I highly recommend running it safe mode and with your computer disconnected from the internet.

Just follow their tutorial to the letter, no short cuts like not running it in Safe Mode and not turning off Windows Update. You will have a "clean" install of your video card's drivers. For years I have been doing this with anything unless it is on a "clean" Windows install. Even with a clean install of Windows following their instructions concerning disconnecting from the internet and running it in Safe Mode (F5)

Most of the problems with AMD drivers are solved or will not happen if you do this from the jump. Or so I hear. I have been down this road once upon a time. Changed everything but the kitchen sink after going from nVidia to AMD using just the uninstall in Control Panel.

Since you have changed motherboards and gpu's trying to troubleshoot the problem probably be a good idea to do a clean windows and GPU driver install following DDU's program.

Hope this helps.

 

[KiritoMJ]

Unfortunately, I have done that already it did not help me at all :/

This is what happens during any game:

 

[Stuka87]

I would suggest running afterburner with all the graphs open. I am betting you will see something in the graphs.

You didn't note what monitor you are running, so a big question is what resolution are you running at? And, is the game installed on the HDD, or the SSD?

The hitch the video is very reminiscent of the video card running out of ram, or having to load content from the HDD. As a test, drop all the video settings down to lowest, and lower the resolution down to like 720, and then see how it plays.

 

[Guru]

Lets get the software out of the way first. As the first responder told you uninstall your current drivers with DDU and replace them with older one, try the version that last worked, to check off the list driver issues.

Have you visited some questionable websites lates or downloaded cracked torrents? Make sure you have antivirus software running and do a deep full scan of your system, I also suggest installing malwarebytes antimalware and scanning with it as well, make sure you don't have any malware on your system eating up your resources.

Download Ccleaner or similar alternative and clean your system of junk files, cache, old, temp, etc... files need to be removed. Also download a defragmenting tool and defragment your drive. I'm going to assume your games are installed on your HDD, so defragment the drive your games are in, but you can also defrag the SSD as well, there is special modes for SSD defragmentation, because its not really defragmentation, but rather cleaning of the SSD cache and left over empty space.

Once you are through with the software stuff and the problem still exists, try reinstalling the game/s that are having issues, in the video I see you play online game, so make sure your internet connection is running smoothly as well, try and reset your router and reattach the cables to it.

After that lets focus on the GPU, run hwinfo and monitor the graphic card, take note if and when it lowers usage rate. If you have it overclocked I suggest resetting it to default and running the GPU at default clocks!

 

[KiritoMJ]

I would suggest running afterburner with all the graphs open. I am betting you will see something in the graphs.

You didn't note what monitor you are running, so a big question is what resolution are you running at? And, is the game installed on the HDD, or the SSD?

The hitch the video is very reminiscent of the video card running out of ram, or having to load content from the HDD. As a test, drop all the video settings down to lowest, and lower the resolution down to like 720, and then see how it plays.

I am using Afterburner, the stats you saw were CPU and GPU info from it, the only thing I can see is the drop in GPU usage when the freeze happens.
the game is running at 1080p I have tried every setting to see if that matter but it did not, the game is installed on HDD but I have bought a new SSD disconnected the other storage I had to see if they are the issue, installed windows and few games on it only and the issue still persisted.. can't tell what is causing it.

Lets get the software out of the way first. As the first responder told you uninstall your current drivers with DDU and replace them with older one, try the version that last worked, to check off the list driver issues.

Have you visited some questionable websites lates or downloaded cracked torrents? Make sure you have antivirus software running and do a deep full scan of your system, I also suggest installing malwarebytes antimalware and scanning with it as well, make sure you don't have any malware on your system eating up your resources.

Download Ccleaner or similar alternative and clean your system of junk files, cache, old, temp, etc... files need to be removed. Also download a defragmenting tool and defragment your drive. I'm going to assume your games are installed on your HDD, so defragment the drive your games are in, but you can also defrag the SSD as well, there is special modes for SSD defragmentation, because its not really defragmentation, but rather cleaning of the SSD cache and left over empty space.

Once you are through with the software stuff and the problem still exists, try reinstalling the game/s that are having issues, in the video I see you play online game, so make sure your internet connection is running smoothly as well, try and reset your router and reattach the cables to it.

After that lets focus on the GPU, run hwinfo and monitor the graphic card, take note if and when it lowers usage rate. If you have it overclocked I suggest resetting it to default and running the GPU at default clocks!

It is not a software issue I have done all that you listed and it didn't make any change toward the performance, including installing windows and games on a brand new SSD and disconnecting the other ones.
As I have mentioned above I have changed many parts in order to try and locate the cause but that hasn't been successful, I have absolutely no idea what is causing it, maybe there is something I am not thinking of or something else that can be done but I don't know.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

As I have mentioned above I have changed many parts in order to try and locate the cause but that hasn't been successful, I have absolutely no idea what is causing it, maybe there is something I am not thinking of or something else that can be done but I don't know.

You have not mentioned changing 2 parts, CPU and PSU. Time to try another power supply, if you have and failed to note it, then the process of elimination points to a degraded/damaged CPU. You can undervolt and underclock it to help evaluate that.

 

[Stuka87]

I am using Afterburner, the stats you saw were CPU and GPU info from it, the only thing I can see is the drop in GPU usage when the freeze happens.
the game is running at 1080p I have tried every setting to see if that matter but it did not, the game is installed on HDD but I have bought a new SSD disconnected the other storage I had to see if they are the issue, installed windows and few games on it only and the issue still persisted.. can't tell what is causing it.

It is not a software issue I have done all that you listed and it didn't make any change toward the performance, including installing windows and games on a brand new SSD and disconnecting the other ones.
As I have mentioned above I have changed many parts in order to try and locate the cause but that hasn't been successful, I have absolutely no idea what is causing it, maybe there is something I am not thinking of or something else that can be done but I don't know.

Hmm, I did not see any graphs at all. Just the HWInfo screenshots and the 3DMark test. The thing to look for in Afterburner is when the GPU usage drops, scroll down through the 50 odd graphs and see if anything else jumps up or down during that time. When you say you tried every setting, did you adjust everything to low at the same time, and drop the resolution to 720? Lowering things one at a time will most likely not be enough of a difference. The reason to drop everything is to see if there is a VRAM/storage issue.

Valorant certainly does not require high end hardware, but something is going on.

As for saying its not software, no way we know that yet. For instance, what anti-virus are you running? Anti-virus can very easily cause game performance issues.

ALSO, lets not forget that Valorant installs a rootkit, and has proven to cause issues for many people.

 

[VirtualLarry]

ALSO, lets not forget that Valorant installs a rootkit, and has proven to cause issues for many people.

What the? I thought PC Games running on Win10 were no longer supposed to pull that BS. There are a number of disc-based DRM schemes that Win10 blocks.

Was Valorant published by Sony?

 

[Stuka87]

What the? I thought PC Games running on Win10 were no longer supposed to pull that BS. There are a number of disc-based DRM schemes that Win10 blocks.

Was Valorant published by Sony?

Yeah, its completely unacceptable. When the game first launched, their ring-0 driver was running ALL THE TIME. Which caused lots of issues. So they "backed off" and now it only runs when the game is running. As if thats any better. And in this case its not DRM, its anti-cheat. Also does not make it any better.

 

[Regeneration]

Something is taking GPU resources in the background. GPU load and clock should be higher.

Check for background apps, if you're streaming, change settings.

In Nvidia control panel, set power management to prefer maximum performance.

 

[Charlie22911]

What version of afterburner are you running? A while back, I had similar issues that was fixed by installing the latest beta. Something to do with rivatuner statistics server if I recall correctly.

 

[KiritoMJ]

Okay so after some testing my graphic card stopped working, I have changed my Motherboard and PSU in order to fix the issue which wasn't fixed at all and on top of that my graphic card stopped working, the fans still spin normally but it doesn't get detected by the monitor, I swapped it with my old graphic card and it works, any idea on what might be the cause for my graphic card issue ?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The only thing left is the CPU.

 

[blckgrffn]

The only thing left is the CPU.

Well, I mean, the GPU died (old video card is installed and working fine)? Sounds like he should get it replaced first...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Well, I mean, the GPU died (old video card is installed and working fine)? Sounds like he should get it replaced first...

I don't think English is OP's first language. What I gather from what is written though, is that all the changes did not fix the original problem, which is the game performance bonks, and then starts freezing and hitching. That means with the the 1060 in, OP still gets the same issues. The other card, whatever card that is, not working, may point to the CPU. Depends on if the card works in another system. Certainly pursue that as well if the card is indeed faulty.

Bryan from Tech Yes City had a Ryzen with suspected damaged PCI-E. He put the card in the bottom/3rd slot on the board, which he said was run off the chipset, and the card worked. Which confirmed the CPU was nerfed. OP has changed everything but the CPU now, and no joy.

 

[blckgrffn]

Fair enough, he just said that nothing happens (no video at all, fans spin) with the 1060 in but some unspecified video card has video and apparently works. Presumably in the same, primary PCIe slot but that is not really specified.

 

[KiritoMJ]

Sorry, I wrote my last reply without proofreading, I don't think I was very clear in what I said so let me explain the update.

I have changed every single part now except the CPU (which strangely enough looks like the most constant part so far nothing strange no drops in performance or heating or anything), I have an older CPU that doesn't work in my current motherboard and it didn't fit in my older one I think due to BIOS update.

as for my primary issue It never got fixed, no matter what I do the only thing that helped a tiny bit in how frequent the freezes are was removing the driver with DDU but It still didn't get solved, and what happened is my 1060 stopped displaying on the monitor, I don't know what happened to be honest just stopped and that happened before I installed the new motherboard, it doesn't make any sense except that something happened to it randomly.

anyway I swapped my 1060 with 1050 that I had, it is displaying normally but the freezes still exist and I think it might be a bit worse.

 

[Guru]

Sorry, I wrote my last reply without proofreading, I don't think I was very clear in what I said so let me explain the update.

I have changed every single part now except the CPU (which strangely enough looks like the most constant part so far nothing strange no drops in performance or heating or anything), I have an older CPU that doesn't work in my current motherboard and it didn't fit in my older one I think due to BIOS update.

as for my primary issue It never got fixed, no matter what I do the only thing that helped a tiny bit in how frequent the freezes are was removing the driver with DDU but It still didn't get solved, and what happened is my 1060 stopped displaying on the monitor, I don't know what happened to be honest just stopped and that happened before I installed the new motherboard, it doesn't make any sense except that something happened to it randomly.

anyway I swapped my 1060 with 1050 that I had, it is displaying normally but the freezes still exist and I think it might be a bit worse.

I mean best thing to do is send it to a local pc repair shop, seems way too complex to be able to solve it through online help, though everything now points to your mobo!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I mean best thing to do is send it to a local pc repair shop, seems way too complex to be able to solve it through online help, though everything now points to your mobo!

OP has tried a different mobo.

 

[Zstream]

Sorry, I wrote my last reply without proofreading, I don't think I was very clear in what I said so let me explain the update.

I have changed every single part now except the CPU (which strangely enough looks like the most constant part so far nothing strange no drops in performance or heating or anything), I have an older CPU that doesn't work in my current motherboard and it didn't fit in my older one I think due to BIOS update.

as for my primary issue It never got fixed, no matter what I do the only thing that helped a tiny bit in how frequent the freezes are was removing the driver with DDU but It still didn't get solved, and what happened is my 1060 stopped displaying on the monitor, I don't know what happened to be honest just stopped and that happened before I installed the new motherboard, it doesn't make any sense except that something happened to it randomly.

anyway I swapped my 1060 with 1050 that I had, it is displaying normally but the freezes still exist and I think it might be a bit worse.

My only suggestion is to use a bare "honest" windows installation, with no A/V, or other software installed outside of the game. Ensure the game is on the SSD. Turn it on, and see what happens.

 

[KiritoMJ]

I mean best thing to do is send it to a local pc repair shop, seems way too complex to be able to solve it through online help, though everything now points to your mobo!

yes as DAPUNISHER said I have installed a new one and both working and didn't affect the issue at all.

My only suggestion is to use a bare "honest" windows installation, with no A/V, or other software installed outside of the game. Ensure the game is on the SSD. Turn it on, and see what happens.

Uhm I have an "Honest" windows version, and I have tried only having one SSD and nothing else but windows and few games on it and the issue was happening too

 

[blckgrffn]

Now I am with @DAPUNISHER on this, time to try the CPU.

But your 1060 completely dying makes me nervous.

If it were me, I'd probably sell everything you have right now and start over from scratch When things are being this sketch I move on. I've sold PC's and then sank way more time and money trying to determine what was wrong with them than it was ever worth, and sometimes it's bad power, bad power supplies etc.

Have you tried a new power cable? Are you on a UPS? I've had UPS's that couldn't handle the throughput cause some wonky behavior as well.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Now I am with @DAPUNISHER on this, time to try the CPU.

But your 1060 completely dying makes me nervous.

If it were me, I'd probably sell everything you have right now and start over from scratch When things are being this sketch I move on. I've sold PC's and then sank way more time and money trying to determine what was wrong with them than it was ever worth, and sometimes it's bad power, bad power supplies etc.

Have you tried a new power cable? Are you on a UPS? I've had UPS's that couldn't handle the throughput cause some wonky behavior as well.

Yeah brother, I was thinking of posting to either call an exorcist or trash the whole thing. Either the CPU has a damaged PCI-E controller or some other CPU function is nerfed, or Gremlins now live in it.

 

[KiritoMJ]

Yeah this is by far the weirdest issue that I couldn't solve, I am pretty good with troubleshooting my PC and I know what I am doing but this thing doesn't make any sense, gonna try with a new CPU I guess if that didn't work I will just get a new graphics card too and I would have a fully new PC at that point.

Oh and no I am not using UPS, I have used two different power supply and nothing happened.