# Stuttering?  I have no idea what's going on . . .



## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Stuttering is the best word I can think of to describe what I'm experiencing.  Happening on the desktop, during video playback, audio playback, games, everything.  I'll go into more detail below, but note that this is a pretty new fresh Windows install so it's not loaded up with a ton o software yet.

Alright, it all started yesterday when my GF was over and we were watching a video in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema with the Combined Community Codec Pack.  Every few minutes the video would kinda jump and the audio would stutter really bad for up to about ten seconds at a time.  My initial reaction was that it was just a bad file, but it happened with the next couple files too.  So I think "OK, something is up with MPC."

Now, here's the interesting part:  I closed MPC and just put some music on in foobar2000 and that starts stuttering too.  So I rebooted and now my whole PC is stuttering, even just simple mouse movements make the cursor jump around and I'm having a hard time typing because key-presses are getting skipped when it stutters so I have to go back and fix it.

Alright, this is pissing me off, but this is a new build so maybe my overclock is unstable?  Well I reset to "optimal defaults" in UEFI and then adjusted the bare minimum from there (RAID, etc.), but it hasn't made a difference at all.

I tried googling a bit and found that there might be a compatibility problem with Sandy Bridge and MPC-HC when using DXVA, but that was already disabled by default and that wouldn't explain why the stuttering is happening with everything else now.  So I have no idea what's going on and would really like some input before I start screwing around with everything trying to troubleshoot on my own.  Maybe somebody else has had a similar issue and knows a fix?​
Other info that might be useful:
-I just built this machine and installed Windows last week, so there isn't much software beyond drivers on it.
-I haven't noticed any extra processes.
-I'm running beta nvidia drivers (290.36) and I have occasionally noticed the driver crash and recover during the past week, so I was already thinking about rolling back to the latest WHQL release.
-All other drivers and software are latest release as well.


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## DannibusX (Dec 7, 2011)

I would s-s-s-s-suggest you go back to the WHQL drivers.

Edit:  It's the most logical thing to check.  Beta drivers are beta.  Next I would look into seeing if there are updated sound drivers.  Check the codec pack too, will it still stutter with another?


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

DannibusX said:


> I would s-s-s-s-suggest you go back to the WHQL drivers.


This is probably the first thing I will try.  Also, interestingly enough, I turned off my receiver and now I don't notice my mouse stuttering.  Obviously I can't tell if audio playback will stutter since I can't hear now anyways, but I'll try a game and see if that stutters.

It's confusing because I have the receiver connected via HDMI to the IGP for audio, not to the NV card.

Edit to include your edit:


DannibusX said:


> Edit:  It's the most logical thing to check.  Beta drivers are beta.  Next I would look into seeing if there are updated sound drivers.  Check the codec pack too, will it still stutter with another?


Audio is from the intel IGP over HDMI.  This is a recent install so everything should be up-to-date but I will double-check.  Also, it's happening in everything now, not just the media player.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 7, 2011)

check your HDD sata cables, maybe they came loose. i am having this problem now. too lazy to fix LOL


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> check your HDD sata cables, maybe they came loose. i am having this problem now. too lazy to fix LOL


Hmmm . . . I will give that a shot and hope it's that simple


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## Widjaja (Dec 7, 2011)

I was thinking potentially SATA cables as well.
When anything like this happens I also check the HDD LED to see if it is constantly on when this kind of behavior is happening.

In my case it is usually the DVD drive causing some sort of conflict.
I just replace the SATA cable and it stops.

EDIT:-
Just to add, if a SATA cable is  little flaky it can only take a bit of a bump to cause a 'freeze' problem.
All I did was unplug a 1/4" jack from my sound card and plugged in a new one and by some miracle it caused the SATA cable problem.


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## LifeOnMars (Dec 7, 2011)

Have you done a full virus/malware/spyware scan? I had similar once and it all traced back to a rootkit on a secondary drive that was installed but I barely used.....(must have had some prOn stashed on it  )


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> I was thinking potentially SATA cables as well.
> When anything like this happens I also check the HDD LED to see if it is constantly on when this kind of behavior is happening.
> 
> In my case it is usually the DVD drive causing some sort of conflict.
> ...


Just reseated the SATA cables, no go.  However, two of them are old, but I have new ones I can replace them with (didn't want to use them before just 'cause they don't match colors, but wth I don't even have a side window).  Next step after that will be rolling back the driver.


LifeOnMars said:


> Have you done a full virus/malware/spyware scan? I had similar once and it all traced back to a rootkit on a secondary drive that was installed but I barely used.....(must have had some prOn stashed on it  )


No, I'll do that last if I have to, because it would take _forever_.


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## DannibusX (Dec 7, 2011)

So you have sound routed via HDMI from the IGP to the receiver and video via HDMI to the TV/monitor?  Try just using the nVidia card for video and sound.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Swapped the SATA cables, problem persists.


DannibusX said:


> So you have sound routed via HDMI from the IGP to the receiver and video via HDMI to the TV/monitor?  Try just using the nVidia card for video and sound.


No, IGP and receiver are only used for audio.  I would just have the NV card go through the receiver for video and sound, but my monitor doesn't work with the receiver.  I'll try putting the sound out from the NV card too though.  I used to do that, but since that technically makes the card run two "displays" it doesn't downclock at idle, so I moved audio to the IGP.

Anyways, yeah, I'll try just the NV card.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 7, 2011)

is your PSU okay?

remove the OC and check.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Switching the audio to the NV card made it worse lol


de.das.dude said:


> is your PSU okay?
> 
> remove the OC and check.


PSU is brand new and all values were within range on my little tester thingy when I took it out of the box.

Already reset to "optimized defaults" in UEFI.


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## DannibusX (Dec 7, 2011)

theJesus said:


> Switching the audio to the NV card made it worse lol
> 
> PSU is brand new and all values were within range on my little tester thingy when I took it out of the box.
> 
> Already reset to "optimized defaults" in UEFI.



Worse with the beta drivers or did you roll them back already?


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

DannibusX said:


> Worse with the beta drivers or did you roll them back already?


I was still using the beta drivers when I made that post.  I switched it back to the IGP and just now rolled back the NV drivers and the problem is still there.


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Installed any updates or software maybe a few hours prior to this happening?


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

Something is slamming your hard drive BAD. I would do a bad sectors check right away.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> Installed any updates or software maybe a few hours prior to this happening?


Nope, and I don't have anything set to automatically update either. 

I have a nagging thought in the back of my head saying, "Dude, what if one or more of your drives are failing?"

edit:  Shit, Jr, don't add to my suspicion!  Drives are expensive right now   Whatever, gonna fire up HD-Tune.


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## DannibusX (Dec 7, 2011)

TheJesus.  Can turn water to wine, yet cannot get his computer to stop stuttering.


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

theJesus said:


> Shit, Jr, don't add to my suspicion! Drives are expensive right now  Whatever, gonna fire up HD-Tune



Sorry bro. You know I try not to hold back punches.


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

At least if an HDD is failing on you, you can still access it. I was also going to say maybe a RAID controller fault, seeing as you're running all drives in RAID.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

JrRacinFan said:


> Sorry bro. You know I try not to hold back punches.


Checked SMART status first:  My backup drive shows a warning on the spin retry count.  Two storage drives don't have any warnings and I can't check the status of my OS/Programs drives because they're in RAID from the motherboard.

I'm gonna pull that backup drive and see if that helps and then I'll run error scans on the other drives (even if the problem seems to have stopped at that point, just in case).


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## ara07 (Dec 7, 2011)

thanks


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Hard Disk Sentinel gives me drive info from my RAID config running off the mobo chipset.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Shit.  I can't believe I forgot about this, but once or twice upon boot up I've gotten a message saying to "Reboot and select proper boot device" etc. that went away after just rebooting and I brushed it off.  Well, it just happened now, let's hope that doesn't mean my system drives are failing . . .


ara07 said:


> thanks


Um, you're welcome?  And welcome to the forums.

edit:  N-Gen, I'll check that out

edit2:  Boot issue kept happening until I put that backup drive back in.  I think it's related to that drive also having my old Windows install from the last machine on it . . . idk, but I put the windows disc in so I can run startup repair


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## Widjaja (Dec 7, 2011)

I've come across a 2.5" HDD which behaved the same way.

For no reason, the HDD would sometimes not be recognized by the laptop.
Only things is once I had it running, it didn't seem to misbehave in anyway.

I can imagine this being really annoying since the build is recent.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Yes, extremely annoying lol.  None of these are new drives though, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're failing.  Hell, if HDD prices were still low, I'd use this an excuse to replace them all right now


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Yup SSD time. I've seen a few offers for HDDs on Amazon lately, some 2TB drives hovering at around $120 or so.


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## Widjaja (Dec 7, 2011)

Ha ha ha, yea that's probably the worst part of it.
Not a good time to have a failing hard drive.

But does the price increase relate to SSD?
Unless you need the 500GB of space for OS and programs, maybe it's time to fork out for an SSD.


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

Soylent Joe has an external 1.5tb for 75


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Yeah, I need that space for games lol


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

I have no games on my SSD, just OS and apps. Games are on raid 2.5" drives, personally I prefer my setup as opposed to having games on SSD.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> I have no games on my SSD, just OS and apps. Games are on raid 2.5" drives, personally I prefer my setup as opposed to having games on SSD.


Right, but I mean I can't replace a 1tb array with a 60~120gb SSD lol, I'd still need another HDD.

In any case, I can't get the windows disc to recognize my installation in order for it to do the startup repair.  It recognizes the RAID array though and can access the files just fine


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Startup repair messes up for me all the time. I guess you're only option from there would be chkdsk? I might be wrong.


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

You're getting startup problems because odds are the drive you pulled had the BCD bootloader for windows 7 on ikt. With the hard drive failing it would give the can't find bootable media error.

EDIT
In other words startup repair can't fix anything because it can't find the BCD to fix it.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

JrRacinFan said:


> You're getting startup problems because odds are the drive you pulled had the BCD bootloader for windows 7 on ikt. With the hard drive failing it would give the can't find bootable media error.
> 
> EDIT
> In other words startup repair can't fix anything because it can't find the BCD to fix it.


Yeah, I figured that out lol.  Just marked the disk as active in diskpart so now startup repair should see it.

edit: OK, back into windows again so I can get back to the original issue 
edit2:  Yup, initial problem still there   Gonna start testing the drives


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

N-Gen said:


> Hard Disk Sentinel gives me drive info from my RAID config running off the mobo chipset.


Sweet, it works for me too.  The info doesn't look sweet though


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

You're going to have to reinstall onto the functioning raid 0 and set a proper boot priority. Eventually picking up a new drive or rma.

EDIT
Yup looks like bad sectors to me.

EDIT2
Download a Linux LiveCD to allow file backups before it gets worse.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Can you suggest a good one for this purpose?  Also, at this point should I even bother running an extended scan and/or chkdsk?


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

Q1: Latest Ubuntu or Linux mint.

Q2: Wouldn't bother.


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Last drive I had to recover was at 30% health, 30% for a drive is almost close to inaccessible, you're probably not going to do anything that will significantly improve it, back stuff up before it's too late.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Alright then, I guess that's what I'll have to do.   And go figure, I just checked the date I bought these two Seagates and how long the warranty was . . . 5/13/2008 and a 3-year warranty.  FFFFUUUU I just spent over $100 on a fucking dinner for two


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

I hope you brought the leftovers back in a doggy bag. I've just had a "customer" that brought a 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 as well about a month ago, was from 2008 as well, and it's completely dead. Sad to see them go, but look on the bright side, it actually had negative effects and you know you have to back stuff up, some drives just die out of the blue.


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

If the drives were 7200.12's I'd be more astonished. Doesn't surprise me they are on the brink.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Well, I've got Linux Mint downloading now.  I'm just going to unplug those drives and then run off the livecd until I get something to back the data up on.  Better than using this fucking laptop.

I need to find something small and dirt cheap to hold me over until prices come back down.


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## N-Gen (Dec 7, 2011)

Only these seem to be "OK" for the prices.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145532

But tbh, you should look for a second hand drive and go with that if you can.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

Yeah, no way I'm paying those prices


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

Check with BoT, I am pretty sure he's got a couple 250GB SATA 1 drives. Again, that drive Soylent Joe has looks very interesting.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

JrRacinFan said:


> Check with BoT, I am pretty sure he's got a couple 250GB SATA 1 drives. Again, that drive Soylent Joe has looks very interesting.


BoT?


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

Yup! BoT!
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121253


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

I think that might the prettiest FS thread I've ever seen lol.

Hmmm . . . Maxtor, never tried 'em . . . $25, I bet I could squeeze it all down to <250gb if I delete Steam games and temporarily move a bunch of stuff to my storage drives . . .


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## de.das.dude (Dec 7, 2011)

so it was your HDDs eh? guess i was partially right.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> so it was your HDDs eh? guess i was partially right.


Yeah, once you and everybody else started talking about the SATA cables that's when I started suspecting the drives in the back of my mind but I didn't want to say anything cuz I really didn't want it to be that


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## de.das.dude (Dec 7, 2011)

i know, HDD prices are shit now.

anyhoo i think its the circuit thats causing prolems. seagate has very poor circuits. i had a drive in my system and it actually smoked (really pungent fumes)!


ig you could find a dead drive of the same model...


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 7, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> ig you could find a drive *with bad sectors* of the same model...



Corrected. That would also be difficult, 7200.11's are prone to logic board & firmware issues. You are right on the ball though, what's happenning is the logic board isn't let's say spinning the platters properly.

@TheJesus

I wonder if you can adjust AAM to it's silent setting to allow the drives motor to last a little longer.


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## theJesus (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm not even gonna try doing anything with them right now; I'm just using my laptop 'til I get temporary replacements.  I saw a couple drives listed in Paulieg's pay it forward thread and PM'd somebody about 'em so hopefully he's still got 'em and can send 'em my way.


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## theJesus (Dec 11, 2011)

Copied my files over to a brand new drive and I'm still getting the same problem.


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## Widjaja (Dec 11, 2011)

Oh damn.

Tried running without the audio drivers and all codec packs?
I once had mp4s lag like mad on a system due to needing to update my codec pack.

I use K-Lite Full.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 11, 2011)

your SB is acting up. let me guess, its an intel?


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## theJesus (Dec 11, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> Oh damn.
> 
> Tried running without the audio drivers and all codec packs?
> I once had mp4s lag like mad on a system due to needing to update my codec pack.
> ...


Well, I can try uninstalling CCCP completely I guess, but the stuttering is occurring everywhere and not just with audio.  For the record, it doesn't matter whether I use HDMI audio (from card or mb) or analog (from mb).


de.das.dude said:


> your SB is acting up. let me guess, its an intel?


Yes, it's a 2500K, see specs. (only thing not correct is the HDDs)


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## Widjaja (Dec 11, 2011)

I recall uninstalling CCCP for some reason but I can not remember.
I think it maybe something to do with mp3 codec conflict of some sort.
Whatever it was, it was something minor.

Hm.....

Have you tried running just the OS drive?
Dettach all SATA related devices besides the OS drive and try it out.
Copy some music, videos to see if it will misbehave still?


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## theJesus (Dec 11, 2011)

Widjaja said:


> Have you tried running just the OS drive?
> Dettach all SATA related devices besides the OS drive and try it out.
> Copy some music, videos to see if it will misbehave still?


Made no difference.  Also, kinda unrelated, but I just remembered to change from RAID mode to AHCI mode and got a STOP 0x7B when trying to boot, so I had to go back to RAID mode to get into windows and edit a value in the registry to enable AHCI support.

I will try uninstalling CCCP now.

edit:  Still stuttering   I'm thinking about re-installing.  This install is only like a week old so it wouldn't be a huge pain.


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 11, 2011)

Did you check your other drives? did you install any new software? Still on the old install, re-install anyways. Sometimes that's the only universal fix-all. Irregardless if you were still having this issue or not, that drive still needed replaced.


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## theJesus (Dec 11, 2011)

Yeah, they're good and no new software.  Actually, I haven't been getting any more stuttering since after that last post lol.  Oh, and I definitely agree about needing that drive replaced.

If it starts back up again, I'll re-install and post back here.


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## theJesus (Dec 13, 2011)

No stuttering, but I'm still noticing the random graphics driver crashes, even though I had reverted to the latest WHQL release.   that's not a _huge_ bother to me since it recovers immediately, just kind of annoying.


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## theJesus (Dec 14, 2011)

Ugh, it's stuttering again.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 14, 2011)

you chipset is going down IMO. happened to a friends intel chipset build.


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## theJesus (Dec 14, 2011)

Man, I hope that's not it.

It's been really intermittent lately, only happening every now and then.  I noticed it some this morning before work, then it was fine all throughout the day even when the gf and I watched ~3 hours of video.  Then earlier, a bit before I made that last post I noticed it some, but it's been fine after that.


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## 95Viper (Dec 14, 2011)

Have you tried running this: LatencyMon
LatencyMon 3.00 for Windows 7/Vista/2008 (x86 and x64) Download free home edition

Starting and stopping LatencyMon 
Technical information
LatencyMon FAQ

It may help you track down the app or process which may be causing the condition or point you in the direction of it.


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## theJesus (Dec 20, 2011)

Thanks for that info about LatencyMon.  I tried it out last week and it suggested issues with my wireless card.  That's when I remembered I never installed drivers for it since Windows had detected it just fine, so I installed the latest RaLink drivers.  Probably more importantly though, I noticed that the drivers for it were set to power-saving mode.  I fixed that and haven't had any stuttering since.

Display driver is still crashing though.  Only happens at the desktop or when I'm browsing the web, so it's not a major annoyance.


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## LiveOrDie (Dec 20, 2011)

Is safemode the same ? would be good to check


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## theJesus (Dec 20, 2011)

Live OR Die said:


> Is safemode the same ? would be good to check


Probably not, since it wouldn't load the nvidia display driver in the first place anyways.  The stuttering issue has been resolved if that's what you were referring too.


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