Random or intermittent hangs and frame drops with nVidia Card [SOLVED]

[Headfoot]

In an effort to be a good citizen of the net, I am posting how I resolved an irritating issue.

Some time ago I bought a 1080 Ti and recently purchased a 144hz Gsync monitor. About 4 weeks ago my computer would 'hang' or drop frames to 0 fps for 1 to 3 seconds during gaming. It didn't happen at desktop or while using the internet, for example.

I tried a number of things, reinstalled drivers, double checked my overclock and RAM timings, all of which did nothing.

I did a lot of google searching and tried nearly every solution I found. I narrowed it down to being related to the GSync + Nvidia combo that was newish.

Ultimately I was right - I went and uninstalled nVidia HD Audio Driver upon suggestion in a thread. Something about conflicting audio drivers. This resolved my issue, I no longer have this problem. I believe GeForce Experience autoupdated my drivers and installed those HD Audio Drivers in the first place. This was related to my HD Audio driver because the Gsync monitor has speakers and can use it over DisplayPort.

I hope this helps someone out there

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks for posting this. Were you actually using the monitor's speakers, or was it enough that the speakers existed?

 

[amenx]

Nvidia driver installs the whole package by default (incl HD audio, 3d-vision, geforce experience, physx, etc). You have to select custom install to leave out the junk you dont want.

 

[Headfoot]

Yep - normally I uncheck the crap but either I clicked through too fast and didnt think about it or it silently updated in the background. I'm not sure which.

I use an external audio interface with its own drivers so I suspect there was something weird happening between windows audio drivers, nVidia audio driver and my external audio interface drivers

 

[cmdrdredd]

Gotta be something about what you have installed because I use the HD Audio drivers for surround/Atmos audio from my PC to the AVR and don't have the issue you mentioned.

 

[Headfoot]

I suspect it was driver interactions, but who knows for sure

 

[SaimDeals]

Great Effort by you I really Appreciate your effort.

 

[Headfoot]

So it gets more complicated. This resolution resolved my problem in all of my games.... except Unreal 4 engine games. Fortnite and PUBG continue to have frame drops, but much less frequently, and all my other games don't. Makes me more certain that there are a few factors at play here