[G73JW] Sudden stuttering

So, up to recently, I've had zero issues with this laptop. However, last night, I came home and wanted to enjoy some late night adventures in TES5:Skyrim, but to my avail Skyrim started stuttering.

The stutters are small periods of time, around 0.3-0.5 seconds where the fps drops to 0.

I've done some searching, and there seems to be some sort of "throttling" issue with the ASUS laptops, but that seems to be a problem that has been around for a while. I've tried to download ThrottleStop 4.0, but it appears to have no effect.

There's also apparently an issue in Skyrim where large save files can cause crashing and freezing, but I've tried to reinstall Skyrim multiple times, and started new games only to have the same issues occur.

The thing is that the stutters seem to occur whenever new sound files are played, such as conversations and fighting. So I can roam the wilds with little to no stutters, but whenever I talk to someone or engage in battle the game starts struggling.

As I write this, I also notice stuttering occurring during browsing and typing, but this could be my imagination, and me actually missing keystrokes.

What boggles me is that this just started happening, and it's slowly driving me insane.

I don't think it's RAM related, I consider myself decent at keeping a tight ship in terms of background programs, but this laptop had a lot of stuff installed that I haven't been able to decide is important or not.

Any ideas on what could be causing this? I've tried to play a few different games that should be less performance heavy, and the problems seem to occur there as well. So I'm starting to believe this is more serious than I first assumed.



Asus G73JW - nvidia GTX460M -i7 core q740 @ 1.73Ghz - 6gb ram - 500GB 7200RPM Momentus XT

 

Check the 3rd icon below the touchpad (the loading icon). If that lights up by the time you stuttered (not blinking, solid light) then it's your HDD. If you bought your G73JH in Best Buy, you only got the 5400 RPM HDD.

 

ThrottleStop needs to be launched, turned on using the appropriate button, then you can safely shut it down.
But i would advice to keep it open AND turned on to do your tests. Most of the users just launches it and doesnt turn it on, which means that its not working.

Also be sure youre on 285.79 beta drivers, and set Power Management to Maximum perfomance and Display to single display mode under Nvidia control panel->manage 3d options.

 

Throttle Stop did not seem to fix the issue. And I'm starting to think it's a HDD issue. I'm using a Momentus XT 7200 RPM with a built in 4gb flashdrive.
It's getting obvious that the stuttering is caused by issues loading sound files.

I've downloaded the new firmware, but that did not seem to help either.


Could it be, that after a LOT of Skyrim, the HDD decided to move some of the sound files to the flash for faster access, and the game engine struggles with collecting them?

The HDD icon under the touchpad does indeed light up. But a 7200 RPM HDD should not suddenly start having load issues.


Is it possible to DISABLE the 4gb flash memory on my HDD without data loss?

 

Did you upgrade the firmware on your Momentus XT? The factory firmware was known to cause stuttering. SD25 takes care of it. There is an SD25, SD26, and SD28. I think SD25 is the one folks usually recommend. I am at SD26 and have no problems.

I have seen people state that SD26 bypasses the 4GB of flash but I'm not sure that's true. My machine is booting very quickly compared to a regular HD and I have SD26. I have no way to prove that it's using the SSD part, but it runs as though it does in my opinion.

 

as you pointed out, one of the problems with Skyrim and Bethesda type games like it, new vegas and elders scrolls 4. is that they all have this one common bug that is never been fixed, they create a lot of saved game files, over time. Reinstalling isn't going to solve this problem. you need to remove those saved game files.

Check your character saved game folder and you'll see 100s of saved game files with your characters name on them. when those get into the 100's it can start to effect the game it's self. what you want to do is ether delete the old ones or save them to another folder and delete them later. if you can keep it down to less then 20 then you'll find your game to work a bit faster when loading and saving. but remember to back them up first to say a dvd or hard drive. then delete.

Try that.

 

I've updated to firmware version 28.


Problem occurs not only in skyrim, but all other areas of the laptop. (I've removed all savegames, and the problem happens on new saves aswell)