Sttttuuttt Stuuuttttttteeeerrrr Stuttering...

[RoEy]

Hi all,

I recently water cooled my PC and now when I play games I get slight stuttering. I can't really be sure if it was there before water cooling or not as I didn’t do much gaming due to the horrendous stock cooler on the 4870x2 but I notice it now. Tried CSS, COD4 and COD5.

I was messing around with sound settings before I water cooled last week but then didn’t play any games until after I had water-cooled. I have heard setting the sound to a frequency the card doesn’t support can make games feel choppy or stutter and COD5 wouldn’t let me load it until I had set the sound back to 16bit 4800kbs DVD Quality..

The stuttering is very bizarre as it's only noticeable while panning (not with mouse but with A and D keys, Left and Right. I'll go from left to right and it's smooth then after 4-5 seconds I'll have a slight stutter. It doesn’t do it in the same place as it can be random.

Have I finally noticed the 'micro stuttering' the 4870x2 is plagued with?

I did use to get it in films too but since doing a full format the films play fine now but it still persists in games. Maybe I'm being picky but I know something isn’t right and certainly doesn’t feel fine.

Things I have done so far:

Full format and put on latest drivers, Inc updated sound drivers. SoundMax HD
Updated BIOS
Latest ATI Drivers

I have noticed that my Hard Drive seems to louder than it use to and does a lot of ticking while gaming. My Hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache. Could my HDD be causing it?

Temps Under water:

CPU:
Idle - Mid 30's
Load - Mid 40's

GPU:
Idle - 31
Load – 39

Spec in Sig – 3 months old

Really hope someone can help. It's driving me mad as I just want to enjoy the system and do a bit of gaming, which shouldnt be too much to ask for.

Thanks,

RoEy

 

[Final8y]

COD5 does not support more than 16bit 48Khz which has nothing to-do with the gfx card.
Anandtech had a similar problem with ATI CF i7 with the stuttering.

Try clearing the prefetch.

 

[RoEy]

COD5 does not support more than 16bit 48Khz which has nothing to-do with the gfx card.
Anandtech had a similar problem with ATI CF i7 with the stuttering.

Try clearing the prefetch.

Ahhhh ok mate. Well since I have done a full format the only game I've tried is COD 5. So I'll put Counter-Strike source on tonight and see how that plays as I know it never used to stutter, (did a lot of side to side movement, whilst walking and being quiet ).

Just thinking too, is the Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache a better hard drive than the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 I have? I want one that's as fast as possible really that is good for gaming / OS as the Seagate is starting to get really loud.

With regards to sound, which setting should I have it on then when not playing COD 5?

I have a Supreme X -FI card that came with the board but I only ever put the SoundMax drivers on for it. It as some more drivers for it but I think that's just for having more options for it etc...

Thanks mate,

RoEy

 

[Final8y]

Search in the Sound section.
Maybe there are some drivers to unlock more features as the Supreme X -FI as its not a standard XFi.

 

[ultrakipper]

Try updating cod , There was a bug with an older update in that you had to use 16bit 4800kbs DVD Quality. I dont think you have the newest update - it's at 1.4 .

 

[RoEy]

Try updating cod , There was a bug with an older update in that you had to use 16bit 4800kbs DVD Quality. I dont think you have the newest update - it's at 1.4 .

Ive got the update 1.4

Not sure what I should set my sound to though. I'll do som digging!

Thanks again,

RoEy

 

[RoEy]

It still does it. Tried it on CSS and every once in a while it will stutter. It seems to draw some parts of the level as I approach yet it never used to do that.

Is my graphics card faulty or can a dying hard drive cause this?

Sick to death of PC's at the moment.

RoEy

 

[Firegod]

What's your AA mode set to in CCC? If it's Edge-Detect, try Box. See if that helps. That fixed my issue in COD4.

 

[Final8y]

RoEy have you tried turning off hyper threading.
Nothing worse than 2 threads getting one core because 0-7 virtual cores & thread 0-1 are on the same core when they would be better with having there own full core each.

Run GPU-Z to make sure that the 4870X2 is getting full X16 -PCIE Gen2 bandwidth.

 

[RoEy]

What's your AA mode set to in CCC? If it's Edge-Detect, try Box. See if that helps. That fixed my issue in COD4.

I'm not sure as I never mess with the settings in CCC. I just tend to setting the graphics in the game. What was your issue in COD 4, stuttering? I'll try it tonight mate, thank you.

RoEy have you tried turning off hyper threading.
Nothing worse than 2 threads getting one core because 0-7 virtual cores & thread 0-1 are on the same core when they would be better with having there own full core each.

Run GPU-Z to make sure that the 4870X2 is getting full X16 -PCIE Gen2 bandwidth.

I haven't but then again I've set my PC up exactly the same as I used to before I water cooled. I'll have a look tonight.

It's such a weird problem and I know it's going to cause me a lot of problems. Just can't work out what it may be.

Thanks again,

RoEy

 

[unknownsock]

You may have seen my thread in the general section but im getting, well seem to be getting the exact same results.

Symptons:-
-Seems to be skipping a frame, still playable but noticable.
-Objects seem to load as your walking towards them quiet badly
-Once the area seems to have been loaded etc the stutter seems to dissappear.

-Generally more noticable when moving past a lot of parallel objects.


Ive tried almost every setting under the sun, with multiple formats.
Currently trying to get another HDD to test.
And i did get this on my previous 2x4870 also.

Ive spent weeks trying to find a solution with no avail.

Did you knock yor PC or your hard disk at all?

 

[RoEy]

You may have seen my thread in the general section but im getting, well seem to be getting the exact same results.

Symptons:-
-Seems to be skipping a frame, still playable but noticable.
-Objects seem to load as your walking towards them quiet badly
-Once the area seems to have been loaded etc the stutter seems to dissappear.

-Generally more noticable when moving past a lot of parallel objects.


Ive tried almost every setting under the sun, with multiple formats.
Currently trying to get another HDD to test.
And i did get this on my previous 2x4870 also.

Ive spent weeks trying to find a solution with no avail.

Did you knock yor PC or your hard disk at all?

Hi unknownsock,

At last, I'm not the only one and I know how you're feeling mate. So frustrating isn't it. I haven't knocked my PC or HDD. I really take my time when building and I took ages building my water cooling, literally triple checking everything and then again.

I've spent an absolute fortune and I just can't enjoy it at all. I really don't want to be stripping it down. Stuck as to what to do really. I may try another HDD too before pulling it apart.

Could cry...

RoEy

 

[PaulyD]

I really take my time when building and I took ages building my water cooling, literally triple checking everything and then again.

That is true!

I don't believe its your hard drive mate as you tested with your film on another drive and it was stuttering before your reformat.

Have you tried doing a full clean install of drivers? removing them and running driver sweeper in safe mode to get all last bits? Obviously shouldn't need to do that but well worth a try.

Also did you use the same cables and plugs on the PSU side after your rebuild? I believe the HX1000 is technically two 500w PSU's put together so could be maxing out one rail and not the other??

 

[RoEy]

That is true!

I don't believe its your hard drive mate as you tested with your film on another drive and it was stuttering before your reformat.

Have you tried doing a full clean install of drivers? removing them and running driver sweeper in safe mode to get all last bits? Obviously shouldn't need to do that but well worth a try.

Also did you use the same cables and plugs on the PSU side after your rebuild? I believe the HX1000 is technically two 500w PSU's put together so could be maxing out one rail and not the other??

I didn't realise that about the PSU. I would not have brought it if I had of known. I know what you mean about the HDD but it may still be worth trying another. I did a full format and installed all the latest drivers, windows updates and then I put COD5 and CSS on. I'm using all the same cables too apart from an extra Molex cable for the pump.

It's such an odd stutter which I guess quite a lot wouldn’t notice but I do. Absolutely gutted if I'm honest but I can't let it beat me.

How can I check the PSU more intensely? Monitor software if there is any for PSU's. I just can't see what's changed since adding water cooling apart from the obvious facts of the CPU and GPU now having water blocks.

Sorry I wasn't on last night Paul, believe you me all I want to do is have a laugh on CSS not mess around testing after all the hard work I've put into the build since January.

RoEy

 

[TheBlackShuck15]

I had a similar problem, but with any steam game. Reinstalling the nvidia latest drivers sorted the problem. However if you have just reformated its unlikely that its a driver coruption issue. Worth redownloading just incase the driver you were installing corupted during download. Worth a try.

 

[RizlaKing]

He has an Ati X2 not nvidia card. Seems funny it has happened since you redid your system although you did say it might have been doing it before as you didn't play many games. I am starting to wonder if this is not a design aspect of the X2 rather a problem with certain gpu's for whatever reason as so far mine plays css fine and all the other games i play. I did try to recreate your problem in css and couldn't so other then what has already been suggested i can't offer you anything but hope that you get it sorted m8.

 

[PaulyD]

Thats no problem mate.

Didn't realise it about the PSU myself until I read some reviews up on it:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=89

Ah, yes. Now that the cover's off, we can see the tell tale signs of a Channel Well PUC design. Some of you may remember that my personal unit of choice is an engineering sample 1200W based on this design. Just for kicks I threw my PUC sample on the load tester to compare ripple and yup - the Corsair was better than it too. Since this design is essentially two 500W power supplies on one PCB

I believe OCCT monitors the rails when stress testing so might well be worth running furmark and OCCT at the same time to see the voltage graphs at the end. Other than that Everest can be used to check the volts on the unit.

I would try removing the drivers using driver sweeper, just in case it could be the window default ones from the windows update interferring and doesn't take too long to try either.

All else fails you could send your card to me for some "long term testing"

 

[boldenc]

are you using AHCI mode for your HDD?

 

[RoEy]

are you using AHCI mode for your HDD?

Not sure what you mean by this mate. Could you explain please?

Thanks,

RoEy

 

[hlennie]

RoEy what are ur settings in CCC?