Strange stuttering problem

[ShinRa]

I'm so sorry to keep making threads, but I can't find any help on the internet.

When I first put the comp together, I played Crysis and GTA4 to test it out. The first day I played them they ran perfectly smooth at max settings, no issues. Then the next day I tried playing them and I had this strange issue. Every 2-3 seconds, I get a subtle yet annoying slowdown/choppiness/stutter. It smooths out, then 2-3 seconds later does it again.

Figuring I screwed something up, I formatted and reinstalled fresh. I installed Black Ops 2 yesterday, played it perfectly fine with no issues. Today I go in, bam, the same issue as before. A small stuttering/slowdown every few seconds.

It gets weirder. The only game that is NOT affected by this problem is CS:GO. For some reason it never has the issue.

What the hell could it be? Fault GPU? Bad software? Wrong settings?

 

[Higlac]

Double check all of your processes, something might be shitting the bed, and make sure that you have all of your drivers up to date.

 

[Higlac]

So I re-read the thread while sober, are you currently having issues, or are you not? If no, don't worry about it.

If furmark breaks everything, then we know what the problem is.

 

[Krynn72]

Do you happen to have Norton 360?

You could check the task manager to see if something is using up a lot of resources. Under the performance tab there's a button for the resource monitor, and that should show you how much your hardware is being used. It'll work best if you have a second monitor to put it on while gaming full screen, but you could try playing a game in windowed mode and see if it shows up.

 

[ShinRa]

So I know noone cares but I took a screenshot of the performance log on the card while running ANY game.

As you can see...it just skyrockets from 324mhz to 1005mhz periodically every few seconds. This is what's causing the stutter. No change of software or drivers or processes has stopped it. The only thing that "fixes" it is lowering all the settings, restarting the computer, then going in game and putting all the settings back up to max. After I do that, ANY game works perfectly. If I shut my computer down, the next time I boot up I have to do the whole process over again. Sound like software or a faulty GPU? I already requested and was approved RMA from EVGA, but if anyone has any last second ideas, I'm all ears.

 

[Drackard]

I'd stick with the RMA. It certainly shouldn't be spiking the way it is.

Out of curiosity, how old is the card?

 

[ShinRa]

Just a month old!

 

[Krynn72]

I heard EVGA gives refurbished replacements. See if you can get a replacement from whoever you bought it from first.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Stuttering? Gather your thoughts first, and then speak slowly and clearly. That's how I got through it.

Oh wait, in a game??? I got nothin'. Sucks to have a brand-new video card behaving strangely.

 

[ShinRa]

I literally tried everything. It's not the memory, its not the PSU. Could it be a faulty PCI-E slot? Could it be the CPU? I'm gonna be wating at least 2 weeks for the replacement card to come in (still covered for 3 years thankfully, even if it is refurbished.) So I was wondering if I could somehow test the other parts of the computer to make sure the problem isn't still sitting in my rig.

 

[Krynn72]

Does your motherboard have onboard video? Try a game with that.

 

[ShinRa]

Not sure if my board has onboard video or my CPU. I'm using the Intel HD4000 graphics chipset, which I BELIEVE is my cpu. And I tried Borderlands to test, but it ran universally slow. As in there was no stuttering or spikes or hiccups, but the game just ran choppy. I'm gonna chalk that up to onboard not being able to handle Borderlands. I'd really like to test another card but I don't have any!

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Whether or not there is a dedicated GPU on your motherboard or graphics gets handled by the CPU, using on-board at least allows you to test your system with the graphics card out of the equation. +1 faulty graphics card opinion.

 

[ShinRa]

Whether or not there is a dedicated GPU on your motherboard or graphics gets handled by the CPU, using on-board at least allows you to test your system with the graphics card out of the equation. +1 faulty graphics card opinion.

See now that's something I didn't know! I'm +1 on the faulty GPU too...but should I rule out faulty PCI slot? Does that even exist?

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

You could test that with a different video card, but you said you don't have any lying around, but yeah, problems can exist on the PCIE bus. Seems very unlikely to me, though.

 

[Krynn72]

See now that's something I didn't know! I'm +1 on the faulty GPU too...but should I rule out faulty PCI slot? Does that even exist?

Its possible, but far, far less likely than simply a bad video card. Only way to test it really is with a known-good video card.

 

[ShinRa]

Its possible, but far, far less likely than simply a bad video card. Only way to test it really is with a known-good video card.

So thanks for the advice Krynn. EVGA is sending me a new card after I called. I'll know on Friday if the new card fixes the issue. If not...what's the next thing I should be looking at that's causing the card to downclock every 3 seconds?