[SOLVED] High Latency after Win10 Update. FIX: I disabled intel speedstep.

[blueneptune]

Hey everyone,

I'm gonna keep this to the point since I noticed at least 10 other people facing issues like mine the past week alone on these forums, I'm sure most of you are tired of answering the same questions

Issue: Incredibly high latency in apps, games or just windows itself. No audio cracks present yet (I use a USB-connected headset that might be why). Mouse movement is delayed, dragging any window in Windows and moving it around is extremely slow and laggy. Game performance also drops from 380-400fps down to 5-10fps.

When did it start: About a week or two ago. Apparently Windows turned my PC on in the middle of the night by itself and started updating. Wasn't as present last week, now its almost constant.

Is there a pattern: Yes and no. It seems to be triggered by internet usage (over a LAN connection). I successfully reproduced it by opening a lot of browser tabs on Youtube. I can't always reproduce it though, its completely random far as I can tell.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, Task Manager and resource monitor show no anomalies, everything is at the usual usage numbers. I might be mistaken but the Network usage does spike a bit at times, have never monitored it before so I can't say if its new.

I've been browsing any and every forum / post I could find here and elsewhere for 3 days. I'll list what I've tried below. I'm mainly using LatencyMon to find out who the culprit is, 99% of the time its ndis.sys

Build
Speccy Link: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/oNGHcTNjAkd4khqa4xO3gR5

What I've tried:
1. The basics: Updating Mobo-related drivers, reinstalling them, letting Windows choose them, choosing them myself and manually installing it
2. Nvidia: Updated / Clean-installed the latest and drivers from 3 months back with and without Geforce Experience and the Audio driver
3. Windows: Tried the repair, reset with keeping my files, reset without keeping my files and finally a completely wipe of all my drives and reinstalling Windows fresh
4. Updates: All Windows updates up to today have been installed and uninstalled
5. CPU Throttling: Disabled and enabled
6. SFC: Done, sometimes finds something corrupted and fixes it. Other times it doesn't
7. Disk error checks on both the SSD and HDD
8. Changing power plan to performance and back
9. Disabling power management on the network card
10. Disable and enabled high precision event
11. Updates BIOS to the latest version from the manufacturer
12. Installed and uninstalled my Antivirus (Kaspersky)
13. I honestly can't remember the rest of it its been 3 days so feel free to ask below if you think I've missed anything

I somehow managed to make it worse yesterday after trying a lot of the above, the spikes didn't cause lag anymore they straight up caused a BSOD saying ndis.sys was to blame because: IRQL_UNEXPECTED_VALUE
I also noticed the BSOD was directly related to Remote Desktop. Every time I clicked connect I got a BSOD but not limited to that. Since the third fresh Windows install today morning the BSOD is now gone and we're back to high latency.
I seriously considered faulty hardware until I had a look at the Win10 section of these forums and noticed there are a ton of other people having issues extremely similar to mine, considering its all recent too I'm guessing a recent Windows update let us all down, again.

Considering Xilolee was kind enough to put a lot of effort into writing down exact instructions regarding latency reports, it would be rude of me not to follow them. So if you're looking for those they start from here, if not you can skip past.
If I've exposed my Win10 license in these logs I'd appreciate a headsup, I'm on a student license from my university and would not wanna lose that.

• Write a brief description of your problem. [See above]
• OS? Windows 10 x64
• What was original installed OS on system? Windows 10
• Is the OS an OEM version or full retail version? OS is downloaded from MS, License is from University account
• Age of system? (hardware) 5-6 years
• Age of OS installation? 1 day
• Have you re-installed the OS? Yes
• Laptop or Desktop? Desktop
• MotherBoard: MSI Z170A Gaming M7
• CPU: Intel Core i7 6700k
• RAM: 2x 8gb Corsair Vengeance + 2x 8gb Corsair Vengeance PRO
• Video Card: EVGA GTX 980
• Power Supply: Corsair 650 Watt
• Is driver verifier enabled or disabled? Looks to be enabled, can't disable it says "No settings were changed"
• What security software are you using? Usually Kaspersky, currently without it to narrow the issue down. Windows Firewall enabled with default settings.
• Are you using proxy, vpn, ipfilters or similar software? None
• Are you using Disk Image tools? None
• Are you currently under/overclocking? Are there overclocking software installed on your system? MSI Afterburner is installed, I have to underclock the GPU to avoid a driver crash. My GPU was faulty and I found out after the warranty was over, it needs to be underclocked by 50 to run without crashing. Have had this for the past 6 years so definitely not the issue. Have tried with and without Afterburner, no difference.

 

[blueneptune]

Update: Might be a coincidence but lately in Task Manager the Performance Tab > Network I've seen the "Receive" spike massively whenever I get the stutters and the frame drops. There is no application using it, but it spikes up to higher than my internet speed which I've never seen happen before.

 

[xilolee]

Try to remove corsair software.

 

[blueneptune]

Hey there, thanks for the reply!
I had done that as well with no luck. I managed to solve the problem, I'll leave a solution here in case others need it. Could you kindly remove the logs I attached now that the issue is resolved, there is some information in those logs I rather not have staying around.

Solution:
The CPU was being underclocked due to Windows updates forcing some sort of Intel temperature control on my motherboard, my motherboard being an MSI Gaming board has built-in voltage controls which apparently go crazy if there is a conflict and won't give the CPU enough power.

1. Open up your task manager and look at the performance tab of your CPU, check the current clockrate, for me it was 0,7 even though my CPU is supposed to base over 3
2. Test run a CPU benchmark to put the CPU under stress, see if the clockrate goes up. For me it didn't, which is a red flag
(Make sure you put the CPU under stress before coming to a conclusion, its completely normal for a CPU to clock lower if its not being used!)

In my case the CPU wasn't getting enough juice even during high loads. I uninstalled all non-essential Intel drivers, went into my BIOS and disabled the Intel Stepping. After restarting the computer I was back to my base CPU clock and would even get the boost during stress times, all back to normal.

I'm sure there are arguments against disabling Intel stepping technology as its inherently a good feature. It might cause unforeseeable issues, too much power usage or higher temperatures. So do it at your own risk. In my case it worked out fine.

Best regards.

 

[xilolee]

What logs do you need to be removed?

 

[blueneptune]

Just the two files I attached, if you could remove those please.

Have a great day and thanks again!

 

[xilolee]

Done!