Stutter or dropped frames...

[no_1_dave]

What would cause the odd stutter/dropped frame which can be fixed with a reboot?

This is happening occasionally and it didn't used to. Ever since I pulled apart my system to install a new CPU cooler and new PSU (Rog Loki).

If my PC has been left on for the day encoding video while I'm at work, I'll find in the evening games will stutter or drop frames every 15-20 seconds or so. Just rebooting the PC stops it from happening and I can game for hours without any problems.

Edit - I've tried re-installing drivers. That's the only thing I've tried so far as I'm assuming it's a software issue because I don't know how a reboot would fix a hardware issue

 

[eeii]

Sounds like ram fragmentation to me. A shutdown won’t fix it. A reboot will. Reboots clear ram. Shutdowns won’t without making changes.

 

[no_1_dave]

Sounds like ram fragmentation to me. A shutdown won’t fix it. A reboot will. Reboots clear ram. Shutdowns won’t without making changes.

Shutdowns and reboots fix it.
The problem only occurs when I've had the PC on doing other CPU intensive tasks

I used to leave my PC on for weeks at a time with no issues

 

[humbug]

Run an experiment....

Turn your E-Cores off in the BIOS, go about your normal used for a week, see if it does it again, i'm 70% sure it won't.

 

[Vexr]

Sounds like ram fragmentation to me. A shutdown won’t fix it. A reboot will. Reboots clear ram. Shutdowns won’t without making changes.

The RAM is 100% cleared every time the PC is turned off as it needs power to hold any data at all

I assume stutters / reduced frame rates are just from garbage that accumulates in the system page file / old processes / conflicts. Just yesterday I was playing The Last of Us and realised I hadn't turned on Freesync on my monitor due to using it for work (causes issues with my work laptop). Turned it on mid-game which caused TLOU to freeze, so I had to end-process it in task manager and do the same for Steam.

Reloading the game I was on about 60 fps in the demanding area I was in and it was a bit jittery. Rebooted the PC and it was back to 70 fps and running happier in the same area.

 

[Deleted member 266365]

A shutdown won’t fix it. A reboot will. Reboots clear ram. Shutdowns won’t without making changes.

What ARE you talking about?

 

[Tetras]

If my PC has been left on for the day encoding video while I'm at work, I'll find in the evening games will stutter or drop frames every 15-20 seconds or so. Just rebooting the PC stops it from happening and I can game for hours without any problems.

Edit - I've tried re-installing drivers. That's the only thing I've tried so far as I'm assuming it's a software issue because I don't know how a reboot would fix a hardware issue

Sounds like a memory leak in the software, where it isn't being released properly when you close the app.

 

[no_1_dave]

Sounds like a memory leak in the software, where it isn't being released properly when you close the app.

This is the idea I had in mind, but it's only a couple of instances of ffmpeg running in Powershell.
Unless the memory leak is in Lian Li's L-Connect 3... I did update this to run the new cooler. Next time it happens I'll just close that and run it again to see

 

[eeii]

What ARE you talking about?

Oh boy. Microsoft introduced fast boot. This means on shutdowns a lot of ram gets saved. That’s why when you check up times when pressing the on button you will see the pc will have been up for days. Only a restart will clear the pc ram properly.

 

[Tetras]

Unless the memory leak is in Lian Li's L-Connect 3... I did update this to run the new cooler. Next time it happens I'll just close that and run it again to see

That's rgb software? They're usually terrible.

 

[no_1_dave]

That's rgb software? They're usually terrible.

No, well yes, but I don't use it for that.
I have the Galahad LCD AIO and it controls the LCD and all the fan speeds etc

It seems to be linked to this but not this. The stutter is being caused by Presentmon which is part of Nvidia's framework SDK. It's used by L-Connect to monitor the GPU temperature and display it on the small LCD screen.
Killing presentmon removes the stutter/frame drops, but also stops L-Connect displaying the GPU temp.

Presentmon appears to grow in memory usage, from about 7MB on boot, to over 1GB after about 20hrs.
The longer it's running and the larger it gets the more dropped frames and stutter it causes

 

[Deleted member 266365]

Oh boy. Microsoft introduced fast boot. This means on shutdowns a lot of ram gets saved. That’s why when you check up times when pressing the on button you will see the pc will have been up for days. Only a restart will clear the pc ram properly.

I don't have fast boot enabled. Have you checked with OP that he does otherwise my point stands.

 

[no_1_dave]

I don't have fast boot enabled. Have you checked with OP that he does otherwise my point stands.

I don't use fast boot which is why my 7yr old laptop boots faster than my PC