Need help diagnosing issues with micro stutters, very unstable frames, having to resort to lowest setttings possible to play games.

[bsr1st]

Good evening everyone

Off the bat; I have an HP OMEN 17-w033dx, and... I'm not savvy tech-wise, so work with me here, please.

Processor stuff
Windows 10 Home 64-bit Version: 18362.778
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz

Combined ram with
4GB SK Hynix 2133MHz
8GB SK Hynix 2133MHz

With this graphics card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M.

And finally the drive
TOSHIBA MQ02ABD100H - 931.51 GB

ISSUE: Generally speaking; my gaming has been getting worse... and worse... and worse. This laptop used to be able to handle a decent amount of games and such, used to perform decently. Of course, It couldn't handle big titles that were heavy on the graphics.

Now, its hurting. Ive not been able to ever play Battlefield 1 out of the lowest settings, running even 1100x700 resolution in hopes to run it with a stable FPS. But of course, this is not possible. Warthunder is the same way, running at the lowest settings possible to obtain the most stable frames; but in the past, I was able to run the game at decent quality and never have a stutter.

Even the cartoony game of tf2 is starting to stutter and lag out when it comes to heavy combat. I've been seeing a trend that mostly gunfire, smoke, explosions all seem to tank my fps instantly from like 40 fps.

Recently I've had programs just start to lock up momentarily, greying out and 'not responding' for about 10 seconds then coming back alive. The boot time has even gotten longer.

About 2 months ago, I redid the thermal paste on the cpu, and fully factory reset the laptop/ culled lots of the old games. Its helped with some heat issues is that the items were hitting 200 Fahrenheit at times. Now, cpu is around 160- 170 when it comes to any game. I use razor cortex to boost the laptop to be able to even play a game.

TLDR: Laptop used to play games good, now its a laggy, stuttery mess, getting unstable frames that go from 130 to 4 fps. Heat is no longer an issue due to thermal past and cleaning.


Below are links to the FPS log of games being played.
TF2:

https://imgur.com/dUScyNT

View: https://imgur.com/dUScyNT

BF1:

https://imgur.com/ZcTRFkH

View: https://imgur.com/ZcTRFkH

Planetside 2:

https://imgur.com/Bvhr59p

View: https://imgur.com/Bvhr59p

CSGO:

https://imgur.com/dOCewRZ

View: https://imgur.com/dOCewRZ

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Since you're using HDD and the slow "degratation" of performance is one of the typical syndromes of failing drive, I would advice first to check your HDD. It's simple.

Personally I recommend: DriveInfo: http://dirkhauschild.de/di_download.php
Download, run (no installation needed), select your drive in upper half and in the bottom half of the program select S.M.A.R.T. tab. If anything in there is in red, backup your data ASAP.

If your drive is ok we may start going further, but this is simple and easy step to make sure we're not making things worse.

 

[bsr1st]

So far; nothing reported to be red, with all percentage data either showing green or nothing at all. anything else to possibly pay attention to?

 

[Oussebon]

Has the laptop always had that RAM configuration?

Is there something else reading/writing to the HDD during gameplay that shouldn't be?

If you run something like HWinfo and have it log everything to a file, check:
CPU frequency
GPU frequency
HDD usage
during the stutter

When is the last time you clean re-installed Windows?

 

[apoth0r]

Basically lots of things to try and understand but you have to start somewhere....check the temps first
If not temps then you need to verify some other metrics such as power usage etc - Afterburner gives you these metrics if you have a supported card

Ram configuration doesn't look or feel right to me, they may have different timings
The 'degredation' could be because it bothers you more these days?
In terms of HDD - swap that out for an SSD pronto
Resolve those two issues and then you're on your way to understanding the underlying components
What temperatures is your graphics card getting? Does it need thermal compound re-applying as it is throttling due to temperatures?