Strange stutter in certain games on PC

[sicarumba]

An update, as I've tried the rest of the suggestions on here now.

trashbat said:

You could also turn off XMP or equivalent which seems to have been producing crash-to-desktop behaviours for me, reasons not yet explored.

Worth a try, but still happens with XMP disabled.

FourWheelDrift said:

Take out two sticks of RAM and try again

Again worth a try, but still happens with only the original 2 sticks of RAM installed.

jimmyjimjim said:

I'll be curious to see how it goes running the network through the graphics card works, too.

Still happens with the network running through the USB-C port on the graphics card (network worked though, which was in itself quite cool)

Whoozit said:

You said the keyboard blinks when this happens. You could try changing the USB port the keyboard is plugged into? If in a 3.0 port, swap to a 2.0 port. If in the front of the puter, put in the back. If in a hub, plug it directly.

xeny said:

My experience is that if a motherboard has USB 2.0 ports then keyboard/mouse tend to give least trouble plugged in to those. In your case that seems to be the black USB ports furthest from the audio ports.

Keyboard was originally in a switching box so I could use it on a Raspberry Pi when I'm working, I moved it to an onboard USB2 port early on to try and eliminate USB from being the issue. Thanks for the idea though.

I think my next step is going to be to unplug every other network device in the house at the router, and disable Wi-Fi, so that only the gaming PC is connected to the network. Just to rule out any other device being to blame.

[14]

I think it’s power related. The keyboard flashing could be because it loses connection for a split second.

[trashbat]

I think more broadly you need to figure out what the keyboard is responding to. Power would be unusual albeit possible, as it's not like the USB system is a significant load. It could think something else is the active process? But it's pretty weird.

[sicarumba]

Doing a bit more testing and I noticed when the blip happens, the Device Manager also blinks, like it does when you add/remove something and the page refreshes. I find it strange that this sort of thing is not logged in the event viewer, unless there is a way of making it more verbose? Like a debug mode?

[sicarumba]

A small update, though I will continue to monitor this for a bit longer :

After seeing the Device Manager refresh every time the game blipped, I started taking screen shots of Device Manager to see if I could spot something disappearing/appearing... alas I could not. But I changed my search criteria in Google to include Device Manager refreshing and I stumbled across a couple of articles talking about the SSDP service. It was option 2 on this page and it was a resolution on this page

I've left the game running whilst working today and I've been seeing the blip/refresh quite reliably every 15 minutes or so, but after having disabled the SSDP service I've not seen it for over an hour. It certainly would tie in with the lack of issue when the network port is disabled, since SSDP is a network protocol.

I'll keep monitoring and provide an update once I'm confident it's fixed, or I see the blip again before that.

[sicarumba]

Ha, bit harsh. I think I can avoid any heinous crimes against my life by having the word 'Resolved' added to the subject which forces future readers to read only the first and last entries. If it is indeed resolved and not just teasing me.

[Andeh1]

I think I have the same, on a few year old laptop, but several games... Team fortress 2, warcraft 3 etc all have the same stutter every 10mins or so!!!

Edit to add... I think mine is HDD related. Games on a mechanical probably 5400rpm drive. I need a bigger SSD to prove it ourt. Is there logic in that though?

Edited by Andeh1 on Wednesday 29th March 19:16

[FourWheelDrift]

Andeh1 said:

I think I have the same, on a few year old laptop, but several games... Team fortress 2, warcraft 3 etc all have the same stutter every 10mins or so!!!

Edit to add... I think mine is HDD related. Games on a mechanical probably 5400rpm drive. I need a bigger SSD to prove it ourt. Is there logic in that though?

Edited by Andeh1 on Wednesday 29th March 19:16

HDDs can cause stutters when you move about and it's trying to load map data from a slow drive. An SSD will solve this, also you can't go wrong with an SSD upgrade, boot times and loading times will be hugely reduced.

[sicarumba]

Agreed. SSDs are much more affordable now, even if buying one doesn't fix your issue it'll be a night and day difference to your loading times and that can't be a bad thing. Got to be worth a try.

The last PC I had with spinning rust had a little LED showing the HDD activity, does yours? Might be able to tie the HDD access in with the stutter perhaps?

[sicarumba]

Just to wrap this up, I just played a mammoth 3 hour session of Snowrunner and didn't have a single stutter or blink of the keyboard lights so I would consider the issue to be fixed and the cause was the SSDP service. Sincere thanks to everyone who contributed.