Microstutters to bigger stutters on Ryzen 7 5800X and 6800 system

R

Reshi

Active member
Hello,

For probably the past two weeks (but especially the last few days), I have been noticing consistent microstuttering and even large pauses and stutters, along with audio delay, in a number of games, ranging from Doom Eternal, to Apex Legends, to Halo MCC and especially Total War: Three Kingdoms. I initially noticed it in Three Kingdoms and thought that it was an issue unique to that game, but it feels like it must be a system level issue with how many games I am experiencing it in.

It should be noted that:

About a few weeks before this issue occured, I upgraded from two 1080p 60 Hz monitors to one 1440p 165 Hz monitor and a 1080p 60 Hz monitor.

I am on the latest Radeon drivers, and do beleive I noticed the issue get worse after the latest drivers.

I am on the latest Windows update, and I believe I had issue beforehand, but they have gotten worse sense.

I've been trying to solve it myself over the past few days, to pretty much no avail.

Here is what I've tried:

Disabling all overclocking and resetting my motherboard to default settings.

Turning on and off DOPP at default settings.

Adjusting RAM settings and speed.

Opening up the case to ensure that all cables are fitted correctly (which they were, and very nicely managed).

Plugging in and out all my USB devices.

Plugging in and out all my monitors.

Installing MSI Afterburner and modifying settings, then disabling it and uninstalling it.

Turning on and off Freesync and Freedsynch Premium.

Turning off Enhanced Sync.

Moving games between my SSD and HDD.

Shutting down all other programs besides games.

Disabling Discord overlay.

Turning off a number of background services.

Running virus scans.

Checked temperatures to see if I would ever get throttling while playing, and nothing I play ever causes the CPU to go above 70, and the GPU above 80.

Checked for updated drivers for everything.

And a bunch of other steps I have forgotten.

Specifications:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO S600 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Eight Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.7GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS WiFi (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
16GB AMD RADEON™ RX 6800 - HDMI, DP - DX® 12
1st Storage Drive
512GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
2TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
ASUS ROG STRIX 850W MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Firefox™
Monitor Cables
1 x 2m DisplayPort Adapter Cable - DP to DVI
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
2 - 3 DAY DELIVERY TO REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Logo Branding
PCSpecialist Logo

The specific 6800 I have is a PowerCooler Red Dragon which is apparently one of the really good ones - thanks PC Specialist c:.

Current overclocking:

Ryzen 7 5800X @ 4.5 Ghz, 1.27500 V iirc. I've had it as high as 4.6 and that doesn't appear to have affected anything.

6800 Manually overclocked to 2350 MHz, 1025 V, VRAM 2130, Power Tuning 10%

Not using XMP / DOPP for RAM currently, but on or off makes no difference. I've gotten it to be stable at 3000 MT/s (and probably stable at 3200 MT/s?) before.

I have enabled resizable BAR.

The only special Graphics setting i have enabled globally is Image Sharpening.

I have seen some stickies and am planning to install the latest Ryzen chipsets.

What should my next steps be? I'm pretty confused what could be the problem at this stage.

EDIT: it does appear that over the past two days hte longer the pc has been on and perhaps the more restarts, the worse the problem gets. It did get better when yesterday when I unplugged it, inspected it, and then started it back on again.
 
Last edited:
R

Reshi

Active member
I had it disabled (including some of its background services), but not uninstalled. I'll try that.
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
How are cpu temps the 5800x is one hell of a hot chip and you have a air cooler be it noctua and your cpu is overclocked most pepole recommend a premium aio cooler for a 5800x
 
R

Reshi

Active member
Last time I tested I was getting about 85 C. max (tending to stabilise around 82 C.) when running Cinebench for ten minutes at 4.6, and for 4.5 when running at max load over 30 I got about the same. Vast majority of the time it's much lower when playing games. I did adjust my fans back to defaults instead of some more aggressive fan curves I had set.

My understanding is that anything below 90 C. for load over time was generally fine to good. Is this the case?

I've uninstalleld Bulldog, I will test more later and report back sometime over the next few days to see if everything is good.

EDIT: more information about temperatures and case:

I don't have the toplate on and I don't have the filter mesh on it either. It's just left open.

We are getting into the hotter months here but ambient temperature is usually yat most 15 C. and closer to 10 C. or less (I'm in the West of Ireland).
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Reshi said:
Last time I tested I was getting about 85 C. max (tending to stabilise around 82 C.) when running Cinebench for ten minutes at 4.6, and for 4.5 when running at max load over 30 I got about the same. Vast majority of the time it's much lower when playing games. I did adjust my fans back to defaults instead of some more aggressive fan curves I had set.

My understanding is that anything below 90 C. for load over time was generally fine to good. Is this the case?

I've uninstalleld Bulldog, I will test more later and report back sometime over the next few days to see if everything is good.

EDIT: more information about temperatures and case:

I don't have the toplate on and I don't have the filter mesh on it either. It's just left open.

We are getting into the hotter months here but ambient temperature is usually yat most 15 C. and closer to 10 C. or less (I'm in the West of Ireland).
Click to expand...
Thats mighty impressive for a noctua air cooler to keep it at those temps for reference my corsair cappellex keeps it at 70 when playing doom eternal tho 85 is under 90 like you said !
zxfA4.png

One way to rule out any cpu heating issues is to change maximum processor state to 90% check temps in game on eternal or a game that will test it and see if it stutters
 
R

Reshi

Active member
I will try that over the next few days as well.

I was generally under the impression that a good decent air cooler could generally match watch-coolers, at-elast in big cases. Have things changed in the last few years or is Ryzen a game changer in this regard?
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Reshi said:
I will try that over the next few days as well.

I was generally under the impression that a good decent air cooler could generally match watch-coolers, at-elast in big cases. Have things changed in the last few years or is Ryzen a game changer in this regard?
Click to expand...
Its more the 5800x is the hottest of the new generation of chips cpu temps may not be the issue but would be good just to rule it out
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Did abit of digging for you
2yvhl7h2h3151 (1).png

Apparently 6800 users have had stuttering freeze issues with Radeon enhanced sync enabled thats also something to try if you have not try disabling that :)
 
jamiephillips909

jamiephillips909

Godlike
Try reducing cpu max as explained before and lets see how you get on update us on if its improved or got worse and we will keep going till we find a solution :) with anti virus etc third partys arnt great anymore windows defender is more then good enough
 
R

Reshi

Active member
I tried Apex after uninstalling Bulldog and still noticed issues.

I then tried Doom Eternal after adjusting the power settings as shown (I had a 'minimum cpu' setting as well and I put that at 90% as well) and still ran into issues. Hell, they were worse than Apex in the less time I played.

I had Firefox, Discord and such open at the time but have encountered issues while having them fully closed as well.

The hottest my CPU ever got was 72 C with its lowest being 39 C.

I will note with the reduced power settings my CPU frequency didn't actually drop (I did record a min of 4435 MHz at any time), while for my GPU the Hot Spot reached 83 C, with the highest for the GPU temperature being 57.

CPU voltage did decrease and increase a little bit (min 1.231, max 1.252) but I assume that is alright.

I will note my GPU can still hover around 50 C at idle or watching videos, which I am wondering if that's hot. I do have zero RPM typically enabled.

I lowered my CPU voltage to 1.25 V before these tests, as AUTO was setting it at around 1.3 V ish which seemed unnecessary - I do remember undervolting or lowering the voltage helped before. I'm not sure if this would affect the results, and certasinlyu didn't make the system more or less stable.

I'll change my power settings back. I didnt' do a restart before setting them but have checked online and it appears that wouldn't make a difference.
 
R

Reshi

Active member
Some other things now:

Today when starting my PC it wanted me to start in safe boot as it had a POST error. This is the second time it's happened, but it's a strange one. Honestly, I have my suspicions it might have been because I slightly bumped the PC while starting it on, so I'm not worried about that.

I have noticed that recently, while all myy drives continue to work as expected, only my SSD comes up as a bootable drive within the BIOs now. I've also noticed that the BIOS now recognises any overclocking changes I've done as a custom profile. I'm not sure what htis could be.
 
R

Reshi

Active member
Did another test with Doom Eternal by plugging out my 60 Hz monitor, still noticed the same issue.

I think it's actually getting a little worse, with me starting to notice some pop in issues in Apex.

Honestly I almost wonder if it's kinda internet related. I seem to remember some time on another PC where going offline helped with some issues? But those could be one of those very weird vague memories I have.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Reshi said:
Did another test with Doom Eternal by plugging out my 60 Hz monitor, still noticed the same issue.

I think it's actually getting a little worse, with me starting to notice some pop in issues in Apex.

Honestly I almost wonder if it's kinda internet related. I seem to remember some time on another PC where going offline helped with some issues? But those could be one of those very weird vague memories I have.
Click to expand...
Try manually updating your chipset drivers, windows update has been known to apply the wrong ones:


And disable any overclocking, Ryzen actually performs worse for gaming with an overclock.
 
R

Reshi

Active member
SpyderTracks said:
Try manually updating your chipset drivers, windows update has been known to apply the wrong ones:


And disable any overclocking, Ryzen actually performs worse for gaming with an overclock.
Click to expand...
I had updated my chipset before, and it appears to not have helped.

I've also disabled overclocks before and it hasn't helped, but that's interesting to here it hasn't helped gaming performance. But by that I assume you mean it reduces FPS... not that it causes stutters or microstutters.

Not sure what I should do next.
 
R

Reshi

Active member
Haven't properly tested that yet (it appears Human Fall Flat doesnt' like the setting), but one extra sympthom I'll note right now is that when I have a big stutter or hitch, the GPU SCLK falls to zero or falls down really low (e.g. to 500 MHz).

THh fans also tend to go off as well during this.

It appears to happen for smaller stutters or hitches as well, but it's a lot more difficult to notice on the graphs.
 
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