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Mystery issue with CPU Spikes Causing PC Stutters

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  • Computers
  • CPUs
Last response: in CPUs
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15 April 2013 18:34:33

After a few weeks of stumbling around fruitlessly, I'm turning to you guys for some help.

Let me catch you up on my problem, so far.

Every 1-2 minutes, the computer freezes for just a moment. This freeze lasts for half a second, and will freeze video and either stutter or simply silence audio. It's made playing video games, watching shows, and all that jazz extremely irritating.

This problem occurs no matter what my P.C. is doing. Regardless of whether I am playing a video game or staring at the desktop, it still freezes every 1-2 minutes.

The issue first started occurring after I took apart my computer, tried a new motherboard (found out it didn't fit), and then reassembled it (so no new parts). That's when I first noticed it. Since then, here's a list of what I've tried:

__________________________________
Re-assembling my computer 2 more times, just to make sure.
Using a canned-air duster to recreate Hurricane Wilma inside my case.
Completely formatted every drive, re-installing windows from nothing, updating all drivers to latest, and even installing a new SSD instead of a hard drive.
Grunted at BIOS angrily (only re-calibrated CPU speed).
Applied new thermal paste to CPU
Tracked Event Viewer/Performance monitor for a visible error. Couldn't find anything that matched the frequency of my freezes.
Considered re-create printer scene from Office Space.
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I've experienced a freeze about 6 times while typing this, and only 1 error has shown up in event viewer: A (possibly) harmless WMI event ID 10 error. And for the record, I'm not even sure if it's a CPU error, I'm just noticing some random spikes.

So, what can I do? I'd appreciate all the help I can get.

More about : mystery issue cpu spikes causing stutters

15 April 2013 18:39:29

What is your build? what are your temps?
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15 April 2013 18:42:53

Have you looked at your processes and been able to pinpoint the process that causes the spike?
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15 April 2013 18:45:23

Running Win-7 64 bit.
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 (35-40 degrees).
RAM: 8.GB DDR3 @ 666 MHz
MoBo: Biostar A770e3 (25 degrees)
Graphics: 1024 MB AMD Radeon HD 7800 series.
Hard Drives: 119 GB SSD (~24 degrees) , 149 GB HDD, 466 GB HDD.
Optical Drive: DVD ATA Device

And then random USB devices (mic/keyboard/mouse).
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15 April 2013 18:53:04

leo2kp said:
Have you looked at your processes and been able to pinpoint the process that causes the spike?


Haven't found anything, as no processes stay up high enough to show up. There is SOMETHING that spikes though, that much I can tell.
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15 April 2013 21:44:25

After some more investigation, I believe that System Interrupts - Deferred Procedure Calls and Interrupt Service Routines is the source of my issue. How can I resolve that?
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a b à CPUs
16 April 2013 05:16:42

from the few times I saw DPC / Interrupts causing that kind of symptoms (PC freezing for 1-2 secs whether on intensive or idle use) was when the HDD had had some issue and the OS changed its mode from Ultra-DMA 5-6 to PIO mode.

I've also seen this issue once with a faulty sound card, we removed it from the pc and the problem went away.

Finally I also had one time when it was a keyboard causing the issue, again, removing it solved the problem.

So in essence, you have some piece of hardware causing the CPU to call DPC / Interrupts way too many times provoking those intermittent freezings.

Check your HDD operational mode (dunno if SSDs mode also appears under system->device manager->ATA/IDE Controllers)

else try to isolate the problem by running your pc without KB/Mouse, extra cards (sound, network etc), a different gpu if possible etc until the freezing goes away.
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a b à CPUs
16 April 2013 05:18:16

EDIT: oh btw, once a joystick gave this same issue but it was its software causing the problem, in this case it went all the way to BSOD though where we got to see it was its driver causing the problem. Something to keep in mind.

EDIT2: I thought i was editing original text :p 
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