CPU power saving too aggressive - freezing 1080p stream

[VeilSide]

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

 

[theveterans]

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.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/950-power-plan-restore-default-settings.html

 

[VeilSide]

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.

 

[carwiz]

How much memory do you have and what's the pagefile size? It may be that you have too much "Bloatware" running. The process and memory manager will try to keep a process threaded to one core but this isn't always possible if too many tasks are running.

 

[VeilSide]

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.

 

[theveterans]

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).

 

[britny]

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.....

 

[Dude]

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.

I would leave the page file at default settings.

 

[TrunkMonkey]

Since a HDD is only ~ 1/50th the transfer speed of DDR3 RAM (not to mention if there is any fragmentation involved in the current virtual memory), Windows may not be thinking a lot about what you're trying to do with this storage and therefore is happily shuffling RAM I/O for this media task to the pagefile.

Click START → type perfmon.exe and hit ENTER. Click Open Resource Monitor. Select Memory tab. Run your testing again and watch the PID corresponding to the media player you are using. Are there any Hard Faults going on? That's virtual memory in action. Next check out the Disk tab for a look at the HDD activity. Something there should provide more clarity on next steps. But definitely 1st thing to do after this little experiment is to let windows manage all pagefile sizing. How much actual RAM is being used during playback?

 

[VeilSide]

Thanks for the replies!

- I have tried reinstalling the Intel graphics drivers.
- What britny suggested is not possible for me, as the "Change settings" button is greyed out.
- I've put the pagefile back to system controlled.
- Looking at Resource Monitor:

- There are barely any Hard Faults (as good as none)​

- Disk activity is very low (see attached screenshot)​

- 165 MB commited memory for the specific PID (for all chrome.exe it's around 900 MB)​

After all that nothing has changed, unfortunately.

In the meantime, the same freezing now happens on the i3 laptop. The freeze happens at the same segment of video, while the stream on the two computers are a few seconds apart. The stream in question is WCS America (it's live right now) There is no freezing at 720p.

I don't think it's my internet since it's 60/60 fiber, with wireless provided by an Asus RT-N66U router. I ran some tests on three bandwidth test sites and ping, jitter, and stability are all very good. Wireless signal reception is full bars, and I've tried both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.

I plan to call up a friend and ask him to test this and/or go over and test it with my computer.

 

[Layback Bear]

Before you go crazy changing settings I would recommend hard wire router to the laptop, (no wifi) and see if things get better. That should help isolate the problem.

 

[AddRAM]

It is totally normal for it to happen, you are trying to view 1080p content on the fly. It`s a lot to ask of any pc.

 

[TrunkMonkey]

What about CPU% demand during playback? I didn't see that mentioned, did I miss it?

1080p30fps CODEC processing is nothing to sneeze at for a system or network. Both have to be in top form. And being this comes from a browser, it basically comes from Flash or similar lightweight decoders which rely on the local CPU to make up for the lack of better and more advanced CODECs. This is why Flash is staying on desktops or large portable devices with big batteries like tablets.

I also wouldn't be surprised if your network plays some part too. Run a few SpeedTests on both computers, replicating as much as you can from your real playback scenarios (settings, time of day, background data needs of the PCs and rest of your home and neighborhood network) to get an idea of how much data your indoor pipes are flowing on average. If you have 2 simultaneous streams going as you mentioned earlier, that's a solid AVERAGE of up to 20 mbps demand to get smooth A/V playback x 2.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools\Advanced Tools --> click on Generate a System Health Report. Try using this as a repeatable Perfmon controlset to be run using various scenarios one by one to see what changes and when. It's a 60 second trace of major performance categories for Windows. If you want to get even more fancy create some custom runs, modifying as you go based on previous results.

To go full circle here, has a root cause been identified for massive underclocking going on with your PC yet? I think that was the original question/issue, right?.

 

[TrunkMonkey]

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 must have missed this earlier and assumed we were working with no access to pstate controls for your CPU or they were already maxed out. Change minimum to 100% and test again.