PC stuttering/stalling?

Corpfox

Corpfox

Active Member
Any high performance games like Black Ops, the gameplay stops every second and the sound stalls every second too.

Is it a Memory leak or HDD problem?

My current CPU usage is 4-6% and RAM is 26%.

Black ops; CPU usage: 17-21% RAM: 35%

Its very annoying when any gameplay, I'm moving, stutterer and the sound is stalling.

Win 7 64-bit
Intel i7 920
Nvidia GTX 275
6GB RAM
820 HDD
Integrated Sound (Speakers)

It does get better after a restart of PC.
 
Corpfox said:
Any high performance games like Black Ops, the gameplay stops every second and the sound stalls every second too.

Is it a Memory leak or HDD problem?

My current CPU usage is 4-6% and RAM is 26%.

Black ops; CPU usage: 17-21% RAM: 35%

Its very annoying when any gameplay, I'm moving, stutterer and the sound is stalling.

Win 7 64-bit
Intel i7 920
Nvidia GTX 275
6GB RAM
820 HDD
Integrated Sound (Speakers)

It does get better after a restart of PC.
Click to expand...

First: Is it only with Black Ops, or just after playing BO? BO is known to cause some really retarded computer issues...

Two: When was your last reformat?

Three: When was your last Defrag?

If it is not related to BO...then I would assume your HDD either needs a reformat or a defrag...or is going out... :P
 
Reinstall Direct X.
Update your GPU drivers.
Check for a sound driver update.
Also, check to see if your power options are set to Power Saver instead of "I want to game, die planet, die" mode. Could be cutting your gaming juice.
 
There are also a couple of other things to try as I've encountered things like this from time to time. (I too have Win. 7 64 bit)

1. Remove unnecessary start up programs. (START > command box > msconfig). Click on the startup tab and uncheck anything you don't *need* to have running (like anything that's not a firewall or virus protection program)

2. Remove temporarily files and cookies. Most spyware will hide in here. That can be done through internet explorer: (Tools > internet options > General tab) Look for something like browsing history or temporary files section to delete.

3. Check to make sure you're not running out of space on your hard drive. Sometimes, when that happens, your virutal memory file gets too small, and causes hiccups like that.


Keep us updated!
 
Can any of these games be windowed? You might try windowing it and opening your processes:
start -> run -> taskmgr -> ok -> processes tab.

Make sure you show all processes and I'd sort by CPU descending. If it is cpu related, you might be able to see something hanging here corresponding to the freezes in game. It might not even be the game - could be some intermittent anti-virus activity or something.
 
i7 are supposed to power up when used, kind of like a turbo boost. But the last I read on the subject I got the feeling that it would turbo from a lower power state to a higher power state but never above full power (ie...not turbo to overclock). It could be that the cpu is not powering up enough. I don't have an i7 so I can't help you with that.
 
Corpfox said:
Yeah. I believe I'm the only one in CGA that owns a i7.

Actually, "Turbo" mode is off.

I think what happens is after its been "idle" for a long time, its not 100% afterward.
Click to expand...

I don't know if your bios can do this, but you might want to turn of the CPU down-powering when idling or not under any significant load, or what ever the CPU power saving feature is.

My MOBO for my e8500 (Duo Core, 3.2) came from the factory with the CPU power down power saving feature enabled. And I had one heck of a time working out similar type issues you listed. After research, I found out that the MOBO was giving control over the CPU power states to the OS and the OS was goofing them up. Turning off the feature to keep full power going to the CPU regardless of load fixed it.
 
Wow, its happening now...:mad:

Been gaming for 3 hours now and its stuttering/stalling.

Even listening to Youtube, the videos/music is stuttering/stalling.

Huh, just a few seconds ago, it said: Memory; 38 Hard faults/sec on the Resource Monitor.

I'm currently using 26% of Used Physical Memory while running 2 Firefox, Steam and Xfire.

Here, you tell me if this graph is bad.

Overall


Memory


Disk
 
In this case, page faults or hard memory faults, refers to swaps from physical memory to virtual memory on the HDD
 
TechStack said:
Are you low on disk free space ?
if so it could be running out of virtual memory.
Click to expand...

That is possible.

A few minutes ago, Black Ops just crashed on me. :mad:

Huh. Based on my Computer Performance rating, my hard drive is 5.8. The rest is 7.4

My main drive has 40GB space.

Its a Seagate 320GB Sata-2 HDD.
I also use a back-up HDD. Mainly for my video gaming/capturing; Seagate 500GB Sata-2.
 
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if these are online games it's your voip router screwing with your packets..it's not your computer corp..We've through this several times..it's that voip router of yours.
 
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Hmm, could be multiple issues but I highly doubt it's anything to do with the Core i7. I have an intel core i7 920 and it works quite nicely without any configuration. Windows 7 Home Premium x64 does all the load balancing without much effort on my part. Not to say you shouldn't stress test it to be sure, but I think it's stable enough not to be the problem.

It could be either the hard drive or the graphics card, my two possible bets. To test these you'll need to run a few tools. I see it's a Seagate HDD... just get a new hard drive right now because I've had over four of those things die within under 2 years. They won't scam me again, I'm going with WesternDigital, generally they work for much longer so as long as they arrive working (had a few DOA)... lol :P

That being said, run HDTune free:
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

Check S.M.A.R.T. data readout for anything saying failure or pre-failure. Then proceed to run a quick test of the sectors, if all the blocks don't show up green you'll have some issues. Then run a benchmark and see if things get too choppy or you experience a crash. I've never had any crashes unless my HDD is going up.

Concerning GPU testing, I'm not familiar with the best tools on that. I would say try 3DMark and/or GPU-Z.

If it crashes, you know you might have some issues. And it's always best to be running the latest firmware/driver for your card. Uninstall the old driver first, before installing a new one or expect conflict. Check nvidia for the latest build, or google for optimized drivers for your card such as the Omega Driver: http://www.omegadrivers.net/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=section&id=2&Itemid=55

It can be spyware or just a bunch of bloat running as Malohaut mentioned.
Run CCleaner: http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner
MBAM Free: http://malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Make sure your running a good and up-to-date antivirus, AVG, Anti-Vir, Avast, etc.
Firewall is preferable as well, I use Comodo. (Which makes gaming a breeze since you just enable "Game Mode" now)

Also, not sure if anyone brought this up, but if the problem occurs online it could be a jitter issue. You can get some pretty crazy lag and jitter over wifi networks which can effect game play. Try PingTest.net to annihilate that as a possibility.

Lastly, it could be a bug in the game. Make sure you patch it to the latest version (e.g. Age of Empires III goes all the way up to 1.09 from 1.0, check the companies website or google)

Hope this helps. :)
 
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