Why is my 860K so laggy?

LigTasm

LigTasm

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 29, 2011
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Like the title states, this thing has been bugging me since I built it. Compared to my Z97/4690k system for desktop/internet use, both with 2133mhz memory and the same exact SSD, both running windows 10 and AMD cards with 15.7.1 drivers - the Athlon system just feels so damn laggy.

Every single thing I do it hesitates for a split second before doing it, even something as simple as a right click on the desktop to open the menu there is a tiny pause before it happens. I've tried shutting off all the c-states and power management stuff but nothing seems to help.

Another example, I spelled a word wrong while typing this. I right clicked on it to bring up the spell checker in chrome, and it took 2-3 seconds to pop up. I went and duplicated it on my Intel rig an it was literally instantaneous. What gives here? I'm not talking game performance, just basic desktop crap that even my ancient E5300 has no issue with doing smoothly.
 
Have you tried a different OS?

Windows 10 has just been released so it wouldn't surprise me if that hitch you're seeing is a glitch with Windows 10.
 
It could be a mainboard I/O issue! The 860K should be absolutely fine for a desktop environment.

If your board is manufactured by Gigabyte or ECS: you should cast suspicion on it.
 
I agree with KazeoHin that it's not likely the CPU. I was running win10 on an 860K recently (and the cheapest Gigabyte FM2+ motherboard on the market, btw; an $80 mb / CPU combo deal from Fry's), and had no issues like you describe.

Try resetting the BIOS back to all defaults as a first step.

Also possible that some service or app is running in the background causing the issue.

If some kind of malware has infected the PC, best to simply reinstall windows. On an SSD, that actually doesn't take too long these days...
 
It does the same thing in Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. The OS install is as fresh as it gets, when I was typing that it was the first boot after installing the drivers from a fresh install of 10 after the "upgrade" install.

My board is a Gigabyte A88X-UP4 but the same problem was present in the Asus Crossblade Ranger I was using the chip on before (the network port died so I returned that board and they had none left so I got the Gigabyte).

Also, when I play games on it it has a hitch/stutter that happens regularly, like every 3-5 seconds it will stop for a split second and then keep going, you can actually see the frame rate tank to 0 if you watch an AB graph while it does it. I can't for the life of me figure out whats going on. Another thing that is super slow is changing tabs in IE or chrome, if I click a different tab the whole machine stops for a bit, just barely long enough to notice.
 
KazeoHin said:
It could be a mainboard I/O issue! The 860K should be absolutely fine for a desktop environment.

If your board is manufactured by Gigabyte or ECS: you should cast suspicion on it.
Click to expand...

10 years ago I would have agreed about Gigabyte.

I think they are off the list now, although I would question anything from ECS for sure.
 
LigTasm said:
Also, when I play games on it it has a hitch/stutter that happens regularly, like every 3-5 seconds it will stop for a split second and then keep going, you can actually see the frame rate tank to 0 if you watch an AB graph while it does it. I can't for the life of me figure out whats going on. Another thing that is super slow is changing tabs in IE or chrome, if I click a different tab the whole machine stops for a bit, just barely long enough to notice.
Click to expand...

Just something to try, but close or even uninstall Afterburner. For me, ever since first installing Catalyst 15.5 or later on Windows 8.1, running Afterburner causes all games to stutter every 4 seconds or so. Looking at the graph in Afterburner, my clock speeds would drop and spike. The same problem persists for me on Windows 10 with 15.7.1. I removed Afterburner and everything is nice and smooth. I don't know if this would be contributing to your performance issues or not, but it's worth looking into.
 
It does the same thing in Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. The OS install is as fresh as it gets, when I was typing that it was the first boot after installing the drivers from a fresh install of 10 after the "upgrade" install.

My board is a Gigabyte A88X-UP4 but the same problem was present in the Asus Crossblade Ranger I was using the chip on before (the network port died so I returned that board and they had none left so I got the Gigabyte).
Click to expand...

The plot thickens... Sounds like a frustrating problem.

Have you already tried swapping the GPUs / memorys between the two machines, to try to isolate the problem by component, or even the PSUs?
 
waderunner said:
The plot thickens... Sounds like a frustrating problem.

Have you already tried swapping the GPUs / memorys between the two machines, to try to isolate the problem by component, or even the PSUs?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have. I've actually tried five different memory kits and three GPU's at this point as well as a couple different SSD/HDD and PSU that I have laying around. I can't really figure out what the issue is, I had an A10 7850K before which was the same basic CPU and it didn't have any problems doing everything smoothly. I don't think the CPU itself is actually bad because everything does work, it will run P95 overnight with no issues at all.
 
Have you tried playing with CPU parameters? voltage, overclocking, underclocking, etc...

Almost seems like it's time to move on to something else... though, it would always gnaw at you, the not knowing... :)
 
waderunner said:
Have you tried playing with CPU parameters? voltage, overclocking, underclocking, etc...

Almost seems like it's time to move on to something else... though, it would always gnaw at you, the not knowing... :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've run it at 4400mhz perfectly stable with 2000mhz NB which didn't seem to do anything but improve benchmark scores. This is my "backup" rig, I put it together for less than $200 with parts I already had. It sits in my office normally but my Z97 board recently crapped out on me so I was using it as my main machine for a few weeks while I waited on RMA and that was when I started noticing the strange behavior. I didn't really use it much before that after I had built it.
 
Make sure you have bios F6 or newer installed. F3 supported the 7850k so it could work great on an older bios while the 860k may post but run like crap.
 
Kardonxt said:
Make sure you have bios F6 or newer installed. F3 supported the 7850k so it could work great on an older bios while the 860k may post but run like crap.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do have F6 installed. I was on F7 when I got the board but it was having terrible stability problems so I went back to F6.
 
I seem to have fixed it! I was going back through the BIOS for anything I missed, and I had left C&Q on. Disabling that seems to have completely stopped the stuttering. I'm not sure why this one doesn't like clocking to idle but I guess leaving that off should be fine, it isn't a power hungry chip anyways.
 
I thought I had solved it, but I didn't. I did find the problem however. I have a bad RAM slot:


150808003018.png


150808003151.png
 
Gigabyte seems to have had a trend of selling boards with bad RAM slots for the past couple of years at least.

I've put together several rigs for customers using Gigabyte boards and like 4 out of 5 of them had at least one bad RAM slot, which was REALLY annoying. I love having to explain to customers that their machines are being delayed because of faulty motherboards. Needless to say, I don't use Gigabyte for anything anymore and won't for at least years.

It seems like the only decent manufacturer left is MSI, at least in my experience. I've never had problems with their boards, even the rotgut cheap $35 AM1 boards.
 
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