CPU power saving too aggressive - freezing 1080p stream

Once in a while, when streaming at 1080p, the video freezes for around 5 seconds and then resumes, meanwhile the audio continues as normal. The freezing does not occur at 720p. It also does not happen on a lesser spec'ed computer at 1080p. Watching youtube at 1080p is no problem.

I have observed that the issue is due to the low CPU MHz. Using HWinfo and 0.5 seconds update rate on my and another laptop, I can see the freeze occurs when the average of the four cores is around 1 GHz. The duration of this average speed coincides with the duration of the freeze. On the other laptop, running an Intel i3, the average does not reach 1 GHz, or if it does, it's not for more than half a second.

Is the problem due to some driver? I have all the latest ones. It shouldn't be a power profile issue because all settings are set to maximum performance. It's not the temps as playing games produces much higher temps and there's no stuttering/freezing. One thing to note is that the Intel PCH (HM65 chipset) is 85 degrees, and up to 90 when gaming. I don't think it's a HDD problem, otherwise the sound would freeze too.

TIA for any help :)

Have you tried resetting the power plan to defaults?. I have similar CPU as your i7 which also idles at 798 MHz. I know that if I set my laptop on power saver plan, Windows will try to saturate the CPU load at 798 to 1.2 GHz before it even goes to the Turbo boost mode. On the other hand, in balance mode or high performance mode CPU will always reach Turbo Mode (2.2 GHz or more) when streaming a 1080p video is then the CPU goes to 1.6 GHz with 10 % CPU load while playing 1080p. On power saver mode, my CPU goes to 20 - 30 % load at 798 MHz when streaming 1080p though I don't experience the dropped frames except when I need to multitask while watching the video.

Try to reset your power plan to defaults and see if the problem still occurs.
Power Plan - Restore Default Settings

I was using a tweaked Balanced profile with all performance settings on high while plugged in. I just tried resetting all profiles, as well as using both performance and balanced profiles (with and without rebooting between changing, just to have tried everything). The problem still persists, and it actually seems worse.

I've thought about increasing the "Minimum processor state" from 5%, however, on the i3 laptop this setting is at 5%, so this wouldn't be the true solution imo.

I have 8 GB of memory, with pagefile manually set to a fixed 4 GB. This is a week-old installation of Windows, with minimal software installed (23, under Control Panel). Also, no tweaks have been performed on this computer, i.e. CCleaner, msconfig, windows services, etc.

The freezing happens even when the only program running is Chrome.

Have you tried removing both the Intel HD and the Nvidia drivers through "add or remove programs (not using the device manager)" and reinstalling them? 1080p videos also use GPU hardware decoding to help alleviate CPU load while streaming. I'm not sure about your internet latency and speed as these can also cause the video to drop frames. One thing for sure is that the GPU (either Nvidia or intel) downclocks when the CPU is at the minimum state (800 to 1 GHz).

Veilside


-Click Start
-then click Control Panel.
-Click Appearance and Personalization, and then click on Personalization.
-In the Personalize appearance and sounds, click Display Settings.
-Click Advanced Settings, click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change Settings.
-Move the Hardware acceleration slider to Medium, and then click OK three times.
-Close Personalize appearance and sounds.
-By default the hardware acceleration will be high, so reduce the hardware acceleration to medium level and check.

hopefully it will be helpful.....