Severe stuttering after upgrading to an i7 3930k!

[SpeedPilot 0]

A few days ago I purchased an i7 3930k with an Asus P9X79 Pro motherboarrd. Now FSX is stuttering more often than before the upgrade and the pauses last sometimes like for 2 seconds whereas before they lasted for no longer than 1 second. The 2-second hitching happened when taxing at LAX for example and quite frequently I might add. I found out about a tweak about setting UserPools to 0 and that got rid of the stuttering but I think it caused a BSOD with a fart-like sound and my PC rebooted. This is with no addon scenery and using the default Cessna 172. Can setting UserPools to 0 cause my PC to BSOD and reboot on me while playing FSX or do I have a defective CPU? Stress tests on my CPU don't give any errors, at least 2 hours testing, so that is why don't think I have a defective CPU. I upgraded from an i7 2600k / P67 platform. So why are the stutters more frequent and severe than before the upgrade? Could it be wear and tear of my SSD, since I reinstalled Windows 7 and FSX many times on my SSD? Could it be a defective CPU?

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

SPWhat is your RAM configuration on that board?RegardspH

[dazz 69]

Do you have HT on?I would try disabling HT and setting an affinity mask of 14.To troubleshoot, I guess first thing would be to figure out if it's an FSX thing or a general issue. Try running some graphics benchmarks like Heaven Benchmark

[SpeedPilot 0]

SPWhat is your RAM configuration on that board?RegardspH

16GB DDR3 1600 in quad channel

Do you have HT on?I would try disabling HT and setting an affinity mask of 14.To troubleshoot, I guess first thing would be to figure out if it's an FSX thing or a general issue. Try running some graphics benchmarks like Heaven Benchmark

I played around with Affinity Mask settings and they don't make a difference for the stuttering. HT is on, but my previous CPU I had HT on as well and the stuttering was not as bad as this.

[SpeedPilot 0]

Do you have HT on?I would try disabling HT and setting an affinity mask of 14.To troubleshoot, I guess first thing would be to figure out if it's an FSX thing or a general issue. Try running some graphics benchmarks like Heaven Benchmark

I this time disabled HT in the BIOS. I still get the same stuttering problem. I used the UserPools=0 tweak which fixes my stuttering in FSX but adds occasional graphical artifacting and BSOD/reboot (if my CPU is not defective) so no point for my to set UserPools to 0. It's not like my system is lacking memory bandwidth or not enough memory.

[dazz 69]

You'll need to test changing one thing at a time. Don't assume it's a hardware issue:Try some other game or graphic benchmark to see if it's just FSX or whatRun CPU, memory, disk,... benchmarks to test your hardwareBIOS to defaultsTry different graphics driversTry disabling different addons in FSXIf the problem persists I normally do a complete backup of my system and try a fresh FSX install.Trial and error

[SpeedPilot 0]

Do you have HT on?I would try disabling HT and setting an affinity mask of 14.To troubleshoot, I guess first thing would be to figure out if it's an FSX thing or a general issue. Try running some graphics benchmarks like Heaven Benchmark

Setting the affinity mask to 14 made the stuttering worse. Stuttering this bad in FSX should not happen on an i7 3930k, 16 GB RAM DDRe 1600 Quad Channel system, at least not worse than before the upgrade.

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Setting the affinity mask to 14 made the stuttering worse.

You have a hexcore so your Affinity mask should be 62 without HT for best results. That leaves core 0 free. What is your GPU? In fact, what are your system specs and operating systems? That sound you mention has me curious, as it almost has to be a harddrive sound.Kind regards,

[SpeedPilot 0]

You have a hexcore so your Affinity mask should be 62 without HT for best results. That leaves core 0 free. What is your GPU? In fact, what are your system specs and operating systems? That sound you mention has me curious, as it almost has to be a harddrive sound.Kind regards,

That sound during the BSOD came from the speakers, not the hard drive.

[SpeedPilot 0]

You have a hexcore so your Affinity mask should be 62 without HT for best results. That leaves core 0 free. What is your GPU? In fact, what are your system specs and operating systems? That sound you mention has me curious, as it almost has to be a harddrive sound.

I tried with Affinity Mask set to 62 and without HT. Still the same stutters, at least the stutters seem slightly quicker than Affinity Mask set to 14 without HT, but then again Affinity Mask doesn't really make enough of a difference than without Affinity Mask and HT on and HT off doesn't appear to make any difference at all to the stuttering. I do notice that right after a stutter, sometimes I see more autogen pop up in the distance.

[Ben Cap 89]

Have you tried using the Bojote online tweak tool? Link is HERE.Also, clear your shader cache(just in case).

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I think it caused a BSOD with a fart-like soundThat sound during the BSOD came from the speakers

Are you sure you were not just...like...really startled, and... well, you know...let one go? :pardon:

[ArjenVdv 190]

Setting the affinity mask to 14 made the stuttering worse. Stuttering this bad in FSX should not happen on an i7 3930k, 16 GB RAM DDRe 1600 Quad Channel system, at least not worse than before the upgrade.

Maybe it should, I've heard more stories similar to this one, that FSX runs really bad on LGA 2011, with really bad stuttering. Don't you realise, that FSX is too old for these kind of monster hardware? Back in 2006, CPU's with 2011 pins, HT, 6 cores were a dream. I think FSX simply doesn't know how to "handle" this hardware, I think it's just normal, FSX isn't gonna run any better than it does now LGA 1155, unless we get much higher clockspeeds... I've also just read a similar story from someone else, who was using FS2002, downgraded from a GTX 560Ti to an 8800GT, and noticed a performance INCREASE, instead of a decrease. Probably again, because FS2002 wasn't designed for those high-end graphics card, and is around 10 years old, and simply doesn't know how to handle them.Even with Sandy Bridge and a GTX 580, FSX microstutters a tiny bit sometimes and heavy sceneries, I repeat, just a tiny bit.I don't think that your BSODs are caused by FSX by the way. It might simply be a virus, yes you can be a very unlucky guy that already got one after 3 days, who knows? Download Microsoft Security Essentials, and do a FULL scan. If it doesn't find anything, it might simply be a driver problem, because your PC is only a few days old, a driver maybe too old, wrongly installed, or maybe not even installed at all. If hardware runs without (the correct) driver, it MIGHT cause a BSOD. Go to this link: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_PRO/#downloadChoose your OS, and download all drivers for your mobo, don't use the CD, those drivers are generally too old. Make sure you run all drivers as administrator (by right clicking on them, and then click "Run as administrator"). Install them in the default locations, and ALWAYS reboot your PC when prompted BEFORE proceeding to the next driver.

[DescendDescend 25]

since I reinstalled Windows 7 and FSX many times on my SSD?

Did you reinstall Win 7 and FSX after this upgrade?

[SpeedPilot 0]

Maybe it should, I've heard more stories similar to this one, that FSX runs really bad on LGA 2011, with really bad stuttering. Don't you realise, that FSX is too old for these kind of monster hardware? Back in 2006, CPU's with 2011 pins, HT, 6 cores were a dream. I think FSX simply doesn't know how to "handle" this hardware, I think it's just normal, FSX isn't gonna run any better than it does now LGA 1155, unless we get much higher clockspeeds...

I guess there will never be a day when hardware will be powerful enough to run FSX smoothly (stutter-free) if this is the case. I did get a little better frame rates on my 3930k (not because of more cores) than my i7 2600k, a little faster load times, and it seems that autogen and texture loading is a little faster at loading when slewing around, although I can't really time for texture sharpening and autogen loading, but the stutters are worse now. I did try the Bojote tweak with my fsx.cfg file and it help alot with the stuttering on my 3930k that it's now at practically almost at the same level of stuttering as my 2600k was without any tweaks to the fsx.cfg file. But then again I really shouldn't have to resort to tweaking with more powerful hardware to get it to perform almost as smoothly as less powerful hardware. I don't know if I should RMA my 3930k as I already exchanged my motherboard once for a different problem and still had the same problem in FSX with the previous motherboard which was the exact same model number. I have a feeling it's going to be hard to convince the shop that I suspect that my CPU might be defective, as it's rare to get a defective CPU.

Did you reinstall Win 7 and FSX after this upgrade?

Yes I did. My brother told me that it could be my SSD which could be causing my stuttering because of the wear and tear from reinstalling Windows 7 and FSX many times to this SSD, and that it's now a "Dirty" SSD, and I wouldn't have this problem with a mechanical hard drive. I don't think it's true because I checked my SSD's health status with Crystial Disk Info and it's still at 100% health.