Stuttering? I have no idea what's going on . . .

[theJesus]

Stuttering is the best word I can think of to describe what I'm experiencing. Happening on the desktop, during video playback, audio playback, games, everything. I'll go into more detail below, but note that this is a pretty new fresh Windows install so it's not loaded up with a ton o software yet.

Alright, it all started yesterday when my GF was over and we were watching a video in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema with the Combined Community Codec Pack. Every few minutes the video would kinda jump and the audio would stutter really bad for up to about ten seconds at a time. My initial reaction was that it was just a bad file, but it happened with the next couple files too. So I think "OK, something is up with MPC."

Now, here's the interesting part: I closed MPC and just put some music on in foobar2000 and that starts stuttering too. So I rebooted and now my whole PC is stuttering, even just simple mouse movements make the cursor jump around and I'm having a hard time typing because key-presses are getting skipped when it stutters so I have to go back and fix it.

Alright, this is pissing me off, but this is a new build so maybe my overclock is unstable? Well I reset to "optimal defaults" in UEFI and then adjusted the bare minimum from there (RAID, etc.), but it hasn't made a difference at all.

I tried googling a bit and found that there might be a compatibility problem with Sandy Bridge and MPC-HC when using DXVA, but that was already disabled by default and that wouldn't explain why the stuttering is happening with everything else now. So I have no idea what's going on and would really like some input before I start screwing around with everything trying to troubleshoot on my own. Maybe somebody else has had a similar issue and knows a fix?

Other info that might be useful:
-I just built this machine and installed Windows last week, so there isn't much software beyond drivers on it.
-I haven't noticed any extra processes.
-I'm running beta nvidia drivers (290.36) and I have occasionally noticed the driver crash and recover during the past week, so I was already thinking about rolling back to the latest WHQL release.
-All other drivers and software are latest release as well.

[DannibusX]

I would s-s-s-s-suggest you go back to the WHQL drivers.

Edit: It's the most logical thing to check. Beta drivers are beta. Next I would look into seeing if there are updated sound drivers. Check the codec pack too, will it still stutter with another?

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by DannibusX

I would s-s-s-s-suggest you go back to the WHQL drivers.

This is probably the first thing I will try. Also, interestingly enough, I turned off my receiver and now I don't notice my mouse stuttering. Obviously I can't tell if audio playback will stutter since I can't hear now anyways, but I'll try a game and see if that stutters.

It's confusing because I have the receiver connected via HDMI to the IGP for audio, not to the NV card.

Edit to include your edit:

Originally Posted by DannibusX

Edit: It's the most logical thing to check. Beta drivers are beta. Next I would look into seeing if there are updated sound drivers. Check the codec pack too, will it still stutter with another?

Audio is from the intel IGP over HDMI. This is a recent install so everything should be up-to-date but I will double-check. Also, it's happening in everything now, not just the media player.

[de.das.dude]

check your HDD sata cables, maybe they came loose. i am having this problem now. too lazy to fix LOL

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

check your HDD sata cables, maybe they came loose. i am having this problem now. too lazy to fix LOL

Hmmm . . . I will give that a shot and hope it's that simple

[Widjaja]

I was thinking potentially SATA cables as well.
When anything like this happens I also check the HDD LED to see if it is constantly on when this kind of behavior is happening.

In my case it is usually the DVD drive causing some sort of conflict.
I just replace the SATA cable and it stops.

EDIT:-
Just to add, if a SATA cable is little flaky it can only take a bit of a bump to cause a 'freeze' problem.
All I did was unplug a 1/4" jack from my sound card and plugged in a new one and by some miracle it caused the SATA cable problem.

[LifeOnMars]

Have you done a full virus/malware/spyware scan? I had similar once and it all traced back to a rootkit on a secondary drive that was installed but I barely used.....(must have had some prOn stashed on it )

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by Widjaja

I was thinking potentially SATA cables as well.
When anything like this happens I also check the HDD LED to see if it is constantly on when this kind of behavior is happening.

In my case it is usually the DVD drive causing some sort of conflict.
I just replace the SATA cable and it stops.

EDIT:-
Just to add, if a SATA cable is little flaky it can only take a bit of a bump to cause a 'freeze' problem.
All I did was unplug a 1/4" jack from my sound card and plugged in a new one and by some miracle it caused the SATA cable problem.

Just reseated the SATA cables, no go. However, two of them are old, but I have new ones I can replace them with (didn't want to use them before just 'cause they don't match colors, but wth I don't even have a side window). Next step after that will be rolling back the driver.

Originally Posted by LifeOnMars

Have you done a full virus/malware/spyware scan? I had similar once and it all traced back to a rootkit on a secondary drive that was installed but I barely used.....(must have had some prOn stashed on it )

No, I'll do that last if I have to, because it would take forever.

[DannibusX]

So you have sound routed via HDMI from the IGP to the receiver and video via HDMI to the TV/monitor? Try just using the nVidia card for video and sound.

[theJesus]

Swapped the SATA cables, problem persists.

Originally Posted by DannibusX

So you have sound routed via HDMI from the IGP to the receiver and video via HDMI to the TV/monitor? Try just using the nVidia card for video and sound.

No, IGP and receiver are only used for audio. I would just have the NV card go through the receiver for video and sound, but my monitor doesn't work with the receiver. I'll try putting the sound out from the NV card too though. I used to do that, but since that technically makes the card run two "displays" it doesn't downclock at idle, so I moved audio to the IGP.

Anyways, yeah, I'll try just the NV card.

[de.das.dude]

is your PSU okay?

remove the OC and check.

[theJesus]

Switching the audio to the NV card made it worse lol

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

is your PSU okay?

remove the OC and check.

PSU is brand new and all values were within range on my little tester thingy when I took it out of the box.

Already reset to "optimized defaults" in UEFI.

[DannibusX]

Originally Posted by theJesus

Switching the audio to the NV card made it worse lol

PSU is brand new and all values were within range on my little tester thingy when I took it out of the box.

Already reset to "optimized defaults" in UEFI.

Worse with the beta drivers or did you roll them back already?

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by DannibusX

Worse with the beta drivers or did you roll them back already?

I was still using the beta drivers when I made that post. I switched it back to the IGP and just now rolled back the NV drivers and the problem is still there.

[N-Gen]

Installed any updates or software maybe a few hours prior to this happening?

[JrRacinFan]

Something is slamming your hard drive BAD. I would do a bad sectors check right away.

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by N-Gen

Installed any updates or software maybe a few hours prior to this happening?

Nope, and I don't have anything set to automatically update either.

I have a nagging thought in the back of my head saying, "Dude, what if one or more of your drives are failing?"

edit: Shit, Jr, don't add to my suspicion! Drives are expensive right now Whatever, gonna fire up HD-Tune.

[DannibusX]

TheJesus. Can turn water to wine, yet cannot get his computer to stop stuttering.

[JrRacinFan]

Originally Posted by theJesus

Shit, Jr, don't add to my suspicion! Drives are expensive right now Whatever, gonna fire up HD-Tune

Sorry bro. You know I try not to hold back punches.

[N-Gen]

At least if an HDD is failing on you, you can still access it. I was also going to say maybe a RAID controller fault, seeing as you're running all drives in RAID.

[theJesus]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Sorry bro. You know I try not to hold back punches.

Checked SMART status first: My backup drive shows a warning on the spin retry count. Two storage drives don't have any warnings and I can't check the status of my OS/Programs drives because they're in RAID from the motherboard.

I'm gonna pull that backup drive and see if that helps and then I'll run error scans on the other drives (even if the problem seems to have stopped at that point, just in case).

[ara07]

thanks

[N-Gen]

Hard Disk Sentinel gives me drive info from my RAID config running off the mobo chipset.

[theJesus]

Shit. I can't believe I forgot about this, but once or twice upon boot up I've gotten a message saying to "Reboot and select proper boot device" etc. that went away after just rebooting and I brushed it off. Well, it just happened now, let's hope that doesn't mean my system drives are failing . . .

Originally Posted by ara07

thanks

Um, you're welcome? And welcome to the forums.

edit: N-Gen, I'll check that out

edit2: Boot issue kept happening until I put that backup drive back in. I think it's related to that drive also having my old Windows install from the last machine on it . . . idk, but I put the windows disc in so I can run startup repair

[Widjaja]

I've come across a 2.5" HDD which behaved the same way.

For no reason, the HDD would sometimes not be recognized by the laptop.
Only things is once I had it running, it didn't seem to misbehave in anyway.

I can imagine this being really annoying since the build is recent.