Video Streaming Conundrum, Month Long Troubleshooting Crusade

Subyman

Moderator <br> VC&G Forum
Mar 18, 2005
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I helped a friend build a new computer and what was to be a breezy, weekend learning experience for him turned into a month long crusade to achieve the same functionality he had in his older PC.

The key problem is that he streams to twitch using two webcams, a snowball microphone, and a capture card hooked to a SNES. With his older computer, this setup worked flawlessly without any problems. He could stream without any hitches or dropped frames.

Old computer:
LGA775 Motherboard
Nehalem Processor (Don't know the exact model)
Nivida 550TI

New Computer:
Gigabyte DS3 Z87
i5-4670k
R9 290

We installed everything, booted fine, and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional. Everything looked great but when he tried to stream, the feed went to hell. He could hook up the capture card and one webcam, but when he added the second webcam everything turned into a stuttering mess.

We tried adjusting the video settings in Catalyst, moved the USB connectors around thinking it may have saturated an internal USB hub, reinstalled windows, and swapped out the R9 290 for his older 550TI. None of that completely solved the issue.

Thinking it may have been a defective motherboard, we RMA'ed the board and waited a week for a replacement. We installed the replacement with no change. I then thought it could be the Gigabyte board for some reason. The DS3 is not a high end board, so we swapped it out for an ASUS Z87, reinstalled windows, and had the same problem.

Finally another friend brought a GTX670 over and it didn't help either. What is amazing is that he hooks up his old PC and it streams completely fine. Even a 4 year old Acer laptop works without a hitch.

To recap, we swapped GPUs multiple times between Nvidia and AMD, RMA'ed the motherboard, reinstalled Windows many times, changed the entire motherboard vender, and made sure all the USB connectors were on all combinations of the ports to no avail.

Could this very specific case be a problem with the Z87 chipset? Any ideas on what might be the issue? I believe he said he tried different webcams with the same issue. Last resort is to replace the capture card, but it works fine on the other computers and I don't think he wants to spend any more money on this thing.
 

Subyman

Moderator <br> VC&G Forum
Mar 18, 2005
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I'll give it a shot. Is there a fix if this is the issue?
 

Gunbuster

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Most common causes are a bad NIC or sound driver, BIOS, or having motherboard tuning utility's running.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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Interesting. I wonder if a pci card (non realtek) would make a difference. Could you test this by disabling the on-board audio? And any other unneeded BIOS items while you are at it.
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
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Most common causes are a bad NIC or sound driver, BIOS, or having motherboard tuning utility's running.


Yeah I would go through task manager and identify all the processes that are running and kill off the ones from asrock. You dont need any motherboard manufacturer's process running for normal operation.
 

Subyman

Moderator <br> VC&G Forum
Mar 18, 2005
7,876
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I will try those out this weekend and report back.