Hardware Major PC gaming stuttering.

[Giodude]

I've made a thread similar to this in the past, but I have some more info. Here's a summary I've put on a few websites that didn't get back to me after a week:

I purchased the base i5 7400 model of the ROG GR8 II around a year ago. Within the last few months, I've been noticing that nearly every modern game i run has this major stuttering issue, whether it be long load times in quake champions, stutter whenever something new happens in FFXV, or textures not loading in until I'm right next to them like in fortnite. I believe this is something to do with the fact that when i fist bought my pc, i thought i could fuse the C and D drives together so i could have 1 big storage medium. I realized i just linked the SSD and HDD together. What I did was I deleted the recovery partition in between the C and D drives and just dragged the D partition into the C partition. I'm not entirely sure if this is the issue, but it's the closest thing i have to a lead. The only reason i can think this isn't the issue is because defragging the C drive doesnt help whatsoever. I also have no clue how to unlink them. Is there a program i can use to see what's actually causing the issue, or is this 100% it? If this is the issue, can i unlink them without buying a new SSD or HDD? Should I buy one anyway? Would resetting the pc and doing a fresh install of windows fix the issue? Thanks in advance.

 

[Originality]

Knowing what graphics you’ve got would help.

I would backup anything you want to keep and perform a clean install. You can also try that Intel smart cache thing (can’t remember what it’s called) to link your SSD/HDD properly via the UEFI (before installing Windows onto it). It’ll use the SSD as a cache and make apps and games on the HDD load faster.

Slow loading times are down to storage (and if it’s running off the HDD, is expected). Missing textures is usually either a memory or a graphics problem. You should run a memtest overnight (its separate from the OS) to check.

 

[Giodude]

Knowing what graphics you’ve got would help.

I would backup anything you want to keep and perform a clean install. You can also try that Intel smart cache thing (can’t remember what it’s called) to link your SSD/HDD properly via the UEFI (before installing Windows onto it). It’ll use the SSD as a cache and make apps and games on the HDD load faster.

Slow loading times are down to storage (and if it’s running off the HDD, is expected). Missing textures is usually either a memory or a graphics problem. You should run a memtest overnight (its separate from the OS) to check.

I have a GTX 1060 3gb with 8gb of ram. Even though I hit the reccomded specs for most games, many are unplayable such as FFXV since the game stutters when I do literally anything even on lowest settings. Also, how would I do a memtest?

Also would using the windows 10 reset feature be good enough?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Memtest is this: https://www.memtest86.com/
You burn it to either a USB stick or DVD/CD and boot into it rather than your operating system, then run the test and see if anything fails

I do suspect that it has to do with how you "linked" your two drives together, and by all accounts I don't understand how you got that working at all... Is there any way you could share some screenshots showing what you did?...

 

[Originality]

He probably did a spanned partition across two drives. Not difficult at all, but when fragmentation starts to occur, it gets kinda messy.

 

[Deleted User]

Have you checked your tempature? High temps can cause masive framedrops.

 

[Giodude]

Memtest is this: https://www.memtest86.com/
You burn it to either a USB stick or DVD/CD and boot into it rather than your operating system, then run the test and see if anything fails

I do suspect that it has to do with how you "linked" your two drives together, and by all accounts I don't understand how you got that working at all... Is there any way you could share some screenshots showing what you did?...

Will try that next; I had a small C: drive of around 256gb and a large D: drive somewhere over 500gb. I went into the partition manager, deleted the windows recovery drive in the middle, deleted the D: drive, and dragged the C: drive into it.

He probably did a spanned partition across two drives. Not difficult at all, but when fragmentation starts to occur, it gets kinda messy.

I can also confirm the windows reset did not unlink there drives. Will rest game performance shortly.

Have you checked your tempature? High temps can cause masive framedrops.

Any good program for that?

 

[Jiehfeng]

I used to have the same problem as you. I always used to get random stuttering in almost every game, could never really enjoy a solid 60fps experience in games that I was supposed to. The problem was that my SSD was dying, and I didn't really know it until very recently when I couldn't use the OS properly. When it starts to die, it dies very slowly, like it takes more than 6 months, and the programs that read SSD health even can't pick the problem out. I fixed my stuttering issues by switching SSD's, as well as getting more RAM. If you're playing new games and are on Windows 10, more than 8GB definitely helps a ton. I have 12 now and with all that I am stutter free.

 

[Subtle Demise]

I used to have the same problem as you. I always used to get random stuttering in almost every game, could never really enjoy a solid 60fps experience in games that I was supposed to. The problem was that my SSD was dying, and I didn't really know it until very recently when I couldn't use the OS properly. When it starts to die, it dies very slowly, like it takes more than 6 months, and the programs that read SSD health even can't pick the problem out. I fixed my stuttering issues by switching SSD's, as well as getting more RAM. If you're playing new games and are on Windows 10, more than 8GB definitely helps a ton. I have 12 now and with all that I am stutter free.

It's the same for hard drives. The symptoms come on slow. You notice things start taking longer to load, games don't run well even when they used to, stuff like that. This is apparently brand new so drive failure is unlikely. I think it's due to the spanned partition. Give each physical disk it's own partition, install Windows and any games you play often or apps where speed is necessary to the SSD, and put all your files like pictures, music, videos, ISOs, downloads, etc. on your HDD.

 

[Jiehfeng]

It's the same for hard drives. The symptoms come on slow. You notice things start taking longer to load, games don't run well even when they used to, stuff like that. This is apparently brand new so drive failure is unlikely. I think it's due to the spanned partition. Give each physical disk it's own partition, install Windows and any games you play often or apps where speed is necessary to the SSD, and put all your files like pictures, music, videos, ISOs, downloads, etc. on your HDD.

True. I never use any Hard Drive or SSD without partitioning it first. It helps with organizing and also helps with separating different task usage.

 

[Subtle Demise]

Any good program for that?

Speedfan

 

[Giodude]

Can confirm games are still a stuttery mess. Gonna try a memtest and speedfan when I get the chance.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

The list of problems with what information I have seen...

1. 3GB's video RAM if your trying to play at 4K resolutions?
2. Spanning a SSD and HDD would be a very bad idea... could lead to an early death of your SSD.
3. Improperly applied thermal paste to your CPU heat sink.

Also are your XMP profiles set up properly in your BIOS for your system RAM? If you just physically installed the RAM and turned it on your PC is only going to be using maybe half of your RAM's potential (although in games it shouldn't cause stuttering?)

So many possibilities.

 

[Giodude]

The list of problems with what information I have seen...

1. 3GB's video RAM if your trying to play at 4K resolutions?
2. Spanning a SSD and HDD would be a very bad idea... could lead to an early death of your SSD.
3. Improperly applied thermal paste to your CPU heat sink.

Also are your XMP profiles set up properly in your BIOS for your system RAM? If you just physically installed the RAM and turned it on your PC is only going to be using maybe half of your RAM's potential (although in games it shouldn't cause stuttering?)

So many possibilities.

1. running at 1080p
2. Im assuming so, not sure if buying a new SSD/ HDD would automatically unlink them
3. Bought a prebuilt, so i doubt that's happening
4. ^

 

[TotalInsanity4]

He probably did a spanned partition across two drives. Not difficult at all, but when fragmentation starts to occur, it gets kinda messy.

Interesting, I honestly didn't think that was possible, I thought you had to use Intel/AMDs respective BIOS tools to use the SSD as a cache drive

 

[linkinworm]

what harddrive is installed? also if you have an ssd you don't and should never defrag it, let windows handle that as its on by default (assuming you're using a modern OS like 8 or 10, 7 can do it but its a bit messy as its patch upon patch) also worth checking your system performance, any programs in the background open? scan for malware or virus's using malware bytes. stuttering might also occur when your uefi settings are wrong, or your gpu/cpu are unable to pass the data to each other fast enough, a weak cpu and a fast gpu will break the experience.

 

[Giodude]

what harddrive is installed? also if you have an ssd you don't and should never defrag it, let windows handle that as its on by default (assuming you're using a modern OS like 8 or 10, 7 can do it but its a bit messy as its patch upon patch) also worth checking your system performance, any programs in the background open? scan for malware or virus's using malware bytes. stuttering might also occur when your uefi settings are wrong, or your gpu/cpu are unable to pass the data to each other fast enough, a weak cpu and a fast gpu will break the experience.

Considering I just did a fresh install of windows, I doubt it's anything non-hardware based. I have an i5 7400 clocked at 3ghz that can overclock itself to 3.5ghz if necessary, which seemingly should get the job done.

Interesting, I honestly didn't think that was possible, I thought you had to use Intel/AMDs respective BIOS tools to use the SSD as a cache drive

Do me a favor and look at your partition manager, just to make sure what I did really was linking both drives. Are the SSD and HDD able to be theoretically linked into each other?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Ok, so this is the only way I've found to revert a spanned volume to basic partitions without data loss or another, bigger hard drive to copy everything to while you're working, but unfortunately it requires paid proprietary software: http://www.dynamic-disk.com/windows-7-convert-dynamic-disk-to-basic.html

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Do me a favor and look at your partition manager, just to make sure what I did really was linking both drives. Are the SSD and HDD able to be theoretically linked into each other?

In theory, yes, but supposedly you're not supposed to be able to do that with a boot drive involved. I don't know if Windows changed the partition manager or if it just derped when you created it but that's not supposed to happen

 

[linkinworm]

another thing to check, nvidias shadow play / xbox dvr (not sure if its on by default in windwos 10) but these will thrash the harddisk, and if its the same hdd you're streaming texture from you're in for a bad time

 

[Giodude]

Ok, so this is the only way I've found to revert a spanned volume to basic partitions without data loss or another, bigger hard drive to copy everything to while you're working, but unfortunately it requires paid proprietary software: http://www.dynamic-disk.com/windows-7-convert-dynamic-disk-to-basic.html

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In theory, yes, but supposedly you're not supposed to be able to do that with a boot drive involved. I don't know if Windows changed the partition manager or if it just derped when you created it but that's not supposed to happen

What I'm thinking is I didn't actually link the SSD and HDD, maybe it was something else? This is the PC I bought: ASUS GR8 II-T044Z VR Ready Mini PC Gaming Desktop with Intel Core i5-7400 and GeForce GTX 1060 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WLHT15C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ntZxBb0C72544