Please help identify what is causing lag/stutter on my computer

Hi,

I have a fairly high end computer that for some reason lags/stutters. I have not been able to identify what is causing this even though I've tried quite a few solutions.

The stutter usually appears shortly after restart of the computer. It usually appears as a lag in the mouse pointer when I move it over the monitor to for example hover over a program icon that I'd like to open. For a fraction of a second the pointer freezes before continuing its move. Sometimes the stutter also appears while writing for example a website address in a browser, or writing in a Word document. This stutter does not happen all the time. Sometimes it happens several times over a minute, while sometimes I do not notice anything at all.

I am not very good with computers so I'm not sure what you guys need of information from me to be able to help. Please let me know if there is anything more I can check or do.

This is what I've tried and made a note of as of today:

- I’m using CCleaner regularly (about once a week)
- The stutter appears before I start any programs at all (I have a few programs that do start with Windows though – closing them does not help)
- I’ve tried to shut down programs one at a time until there are no programs running in the lower right task bar.
- Using CCleaner – Tools – Startup – Windows tab: I’ve stopped all software from running during startup. The stutters do not disappear though.
- To me it sounds as if my HIS Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards fan, or the motherboard fan increases in speed at the same time as the worst stutter
- In Windows Task Manager - Performance tab, I cannot see any spikes at all when the stutter happens, and on the Processes tab – Idle processes uses about 98% of the CPU

I’m lost basically. As far as I know no software is running except windows, and a few essentials. There should be plenty of resources on my computer to avoid stuttering.

I could really need your help.

This is my computer specs

ASUS P9X79
Intel Core i7-3820 Processor
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB CL9
Samsung SSD 830 Series 128GB 2.5"
Corsair HX 850W PSU
HIS Radeon HD 7950 3GB
Sony Optiarc DVD±RW Writer
Intel Air Cooling
ASUS PCE-N15 11n PCI-E Adapter
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB

Is this a UEFI/encrypted install? (Some mainboards will allow you to skip this, using a legacy option)

How full is your SSD? (Try another SSD port and/or cable, and disable all unused SATA ports)

Another option, install to your conventional hard drive for testing purposes....

mdd1963 said:

Is this a UEFI/encrypted install? (Some mainboards will allow you to skip this, using a legacy option)

How full is your SSD? (Try another SSD port and/or cable, and disable all unused SATA ports)

Another option, install to your conventional hard drive for testing purposes....

Hmm... Not much I can answer for you here I'm afraid... I do not know if this is a UEFI install. Windows is installed on my SSD, while as many as my programs as possible are installed on the regular disk.

My SSD has about 15 of 119 GB free.

Install what to my conventional hard drive?

Some SSDs can begin to have/experience issues when they are more than 80-90% full....

Have you had the 'stutter' symptom since it was built, or, just recently as, for instance, the SSD began to fill up? (I'd try clearing out 10-15 GB of space on it, and see if there is any improvement)

mdd1963 said:

Some SSDs can begin to have/experience issues when they are more than 80-90% full....

Have you had the 'stutter' symptom since it was built, or, just recently as, for instance, the SSD began to fill up? (I'd try clearing out 10-15 GB of space on it, and see if there is any improvement)

The stutter was definitely not there when the computer was new. It has appeared lately when the SSD has filled up, but if it is related I do not know.

I’ll see if I can free up some more space on the SSD. I actually started a thread related to what was stored on the SSD about a week ago (With two HDs - How to use SSD as install drive for Windows only?).

I have tried to remove as much as possible from the SSD, but still have a lot of files in the AppData folder…

I only want to have the OS on the SSD, so I have moved user files and all software (including games) to the regular HDD. Still, the Users/AppData folder is very large. My iPad/iPhone backups are kept there and they are big. Unfortunately iTunes do not have an option for changing backup folder...

Now I just copied the backups out of the SSD to the HDD and now I have about 50 of 119 GB free on that drive.

I also checked all connections, opened up the computer and did a good cleaning. I have done this just a few weeks ago, but this time I did an as good job as I could.

After a restart I've been testing and using the computer for about an hour now without noticing any major stuttering, but I'm not fully convinced it is away either. Sometimes it takes a while before it appears...

I'm bringing this thread back to live again as the stutter unfortunately is still here.

To recap the problem and what I’ve done so far:

The stutter usually appears shortly after restart of the computer. It usually appears as a lag in the mouse pointer when I move it over the monitor to for example hover over a program icon that I'd like to open. For a fraction of a second the pointer freezes before continuing its move. Sometimes the stutter also appears while writing for example a website address in a browser, or writing in a Word document. This stutter does not happen all the time. Sometimes it happens several times over a minute, while sometimes I do not notice anything at all.

This is what I've tried and made a note of as of today:

- I’m using CCleaner regularly (about once a week)
- The stutter appears before I start any programs at all (I have a few programs that do start with Windows though – closing them does not appear to help)
- I’ve tried to shut down programs one at a time until there are no programs running in the lower right task bar.
- Using CCleaner – Tools – Startup – Windows tab: I’ve stopped all software from running during startup. The stutters do not disappear though.
- To me it sounds as if my HIS Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards fan, or the motherboard fan increases in speed at the same time as the worst stutter
- In Windows Task Manager - Performance tab, I cannot see any spikes at all when the stutter happens, and on the Processes tab – Idle processes uses about 98% of the CPU
- I’ve cleaned and vacuum cleaned the inside of my computer.
- I’ve deleted lots of stuff on my SSD and it now has about 40% free space.

It appears as if the problem only exists on my own user account. When I log on to one of the two other accounts on this computer the stuttering is not there…

Any advice and help would be very appreciated.