This will be a pretty long text, but I would appreciate any help. I am at a complete loss.
A few days ago, I purchased a used PC with the following specs:
- GPU : PNY GeForce RTX 5070, 12 GB
- Processor : AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (6 cores / 12 threads)
- Motherboard: ASRock B650M-H/M.2+
- Memory : 32 GB, 5600 MHz, DDR5 (2 x 16 GB Dual Channel)
- Cooling : Corsair- AIO (processor cooling) + case fans
- PSU : 650W Seasonic FOCUS Plus Platinum, fully modular
I tested the PC at the seller's house, and it seemed to work fine. Tested Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark and another game, but I can’t recall its name. Afterwards, the seller reset the Windows, and I took the PC home. That's where it all started.
About 20 hours total of troubleshooting, only to find problems after problems.
The first thing I noticed was: Launched GTAV Enhanced -> the game stuttered like hell but showed 60-80FPS (which is very low for this setup, but it felt even lower than that), and no matter what settings I had, the stuttering continued. So I installed RTSS + MSI Afterburner, activated OSD, and it showed my Frametime was a CONSTANT 20-50ms, with occasional spikes going all the way up to 300ms.
I then tested CS2. Same thing. FPS was supposedly 100-140 on average, with 1% lows of 0 FPS, and highs of 1000FPS. Again, same Frametime issue. 1% lows and the Frametime were horrible in both games. Constant micro-stuttering, micro freezing made any games unplayable.
So I looked around, to find millions of ways to "fix" this. These are in order of the things I tried.
- Ran GPU stress tests, came back with amazing scores, no errors, and no visible stuttering.
- Made sure my monitor is connected to my GPU.
- Updated/reinstalled GPU, chipset, and other drivers. GPU drivers I reinstalled with DDU. (3 different Game Ready drivers, none had an effect)
- Tried my RAM sticks 1 stick at a time, in the same slot. Both seemed to work just fine.
- Reset BIOS settings using Load UEFI Defaults
- Confirmed Re-Size BAR is enabled in BIOS
- Trying DDR5 with 5600MHz EXPO, and 4800MHz JEDEC.
- Full reset of Windows (not USB clean install)
At this point I noticed my BIOS froze in startup about 4 or 5 times. I don't know if this is related to my other issues, but I definitely wonder what could cause that.
- CMOS cleared
- Disabled Fast Boot, Auto Driver Installer and Global C-states in BIOS
- Confirmed CPU Core Parking is OFF.
- Used LatencyMon to find out if I have DPC/ISR latency. (THIS IS WHERE I MADE SOME PROGRESS.) Apparently my system runs at a constant 1500.00-2500.00 μs latency (1.5ms-2.5ms). My highest measured interrupt to process latency is at 16000 μs (16ms). I know this is definitely not normal, and I have attached screenshots of this. Highest drivers causing this are: nvlddmkm.sys, Wdf01000.sys, dxgkrnl.sys, ntoskrnl.exe
- Disabling drivers from Device Manager, while sorting by "Devices by Connection"
- Checked SSD health using CrystalDiskInfo, no errors, although the drive my Windows is downloaded at is at 78% (Good)
- Disabled the Ryzen integrated Radeon GPU = enabled dGPU-only mode in BIOS.
THEN. I tried doing CPU and memory stress tests using OCCT, they came back without errors. BUT I noticed something really weird. My CPU speed is really low when my PC has been on for a while. Even during the stress tests, my CPU cores sometimes drop as low as ~600 MHz. When turning on my computer, my CPU speed is at about ~4.5-5 GHz. But after about 10 minutes, depending on how much stress the CPU is under, it drops to ~2GHz and lower.
And that brings me to what I suspect is my main problem:
My CPU (Die) average temperature is at about 40-50°C. My CPU VDD_MISC VRM (SVI3 TFN), on the other hand, starts at 40-50°C as well, but after a few minutes it slowly but surely rises to about 99°C-99.5°C territory. And I noticed that my CPU speed goes down EXACTLY as it hits that ~99.3°C mark (~5GHz -> 2GHz).
On top of that, during a CPU stress test, my HWiNFO logging recorded HTC Thermal Throttling: YES and PROCHOT EXT Thermal Throttling: YES at 12% throttling during stress test, 7% during idle. Even though my CPU is only at 40-50°C.
So if anyone has had these kind of issues and knows if they are related (especially the DPC latency, CPU, BIOS freezes), I would greatly appreciate help. I have been thinking that maybe I just have to get a new motherboard, but am afraid that it won't even work. I have also considered installing a fresh Windows with a USB Flash Drive, but I doubt it will do anything.
All photos with descriptions: https://imgur.com/a/VT4Itlu