4690k stuttering?

[THend2]

About 5-10 minutes into any game, especially Battlefield 4, I start getting these really short freezes maybe once every 10 seconds. I'm pretty sure this is an issue with my 4690k because this only started happening after I attempted an overclock.

My steps for the overclock were to update my motherboard's bios, then I set the CPU input voltage to 1.9v, the cpu core voltage to 1.25v, and the multiplier to 44. This gave me a BSOD into a few minutes of Prime95 testing, so I lowered the multiplier to 43. That passed 3 hours of Prime95 testing with good temps, so I stopped there and called it stable.

I've tried removing the overclock, raising the core voltage, reseting my bios settings altogether, rolling back to the earlier motherboard bios version and the freezing issue remains. Any ideas what this could be? CPU damage somehow? My CPU still produces good results in benchmarks. I've actually seen multiple threads online with the same or similar problems, but none have a solution that worked for me. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[Jose_H_Intel1]

Hi R1ddl3, could this be memory related? Perhaps you would like to test with a single memory stick and then swap it with another one. Windows* includes a memory diagnostic tool.

It would be good to see if something can be identified from the Windows* Resource Monitor, like any specific background process.

You may also run the Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool while using BIOS default settings.

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-031726.htm Processors — What is the Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool?

[THend2]

Hi. I just used the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to test each of my RAM sticks individually and it didn't find anything wrong. And I actually already ran the Intel Diagnostic tool during a live chat session with Intel support, my CPU passed 100%. You think there could be a background process causing this to happen in games? Should I look for a process with high CPU usage whenever a freeze occurs?

I have been monitoring my GPU/CPU usage in games (specifically Battlefield 4), and whenever I get a freeze in game, my GPU usage drops to basically 0 for just an instant but my CPU usage remains at between 90-100%.

[Jose_H_Intel1]

It would be good to check if the issue is related to specific processes (besides the game's exe) increasing the CPU usage or if you see any related information in Windows* Event Log.

Do you notice if the issue occurs when the system is reading from the hard drive, like when it is loading the game?

I am not sure if you are using third party graphics but you can also try with Intel® HD Graphics. I suggest testing the system with the minimum configuration possible, latest BIOS and graphics driver.

[THend2]

I was actually able to solve my problem by wiping my OS drive and re installing Windows and all my applications. It was a bit of a pain, but my problem is gone.

Before the re installation, I tried looking for a specific process that could have been causing problems, but I wasn't able to find anything. The problem only occurred ~10 minutes into playing a game for the first time, so I don't think my drive had anything to do with it. On top of that, I'm using a relatively new SSD. Since the re installation is what fixed things, I'm guessing it was a background Windows process or something. Or maybe corrupt drivers somewhere. Either way, thanks for the help!