Finally fixed my PC’s persistent graphics and audio stutters(ctrl.blog)
ctrl.blog
Finally fixed my PC’s persistent graphics and audio stutters
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/troubleshoot-stuttering.html
109 comments
Mate, Dell U2518D. I still have it and had the same span of feeling that something is off. I managed to capture it with a high-speed camera and it's even funnier than just a stutter. It produces VERTICAL tearing every 20 seconds. Nobody would belive me something like that is even possible. I wouldn't belive me if I didn't see it with my own eyes.
Dell actually made a firmware verison that address it and people reported that it indeed fixed it. But guess what? You cannot download it! The only way to get newer FW was to buy a monitor from a newer production batch.
Dell actually made a firmware verison that address it and people reported that it indeed fixed it. But guess what? You cannot download it! The only way to get newer FW was to buy a monitor from a newer production batch.
I had the same sort of firmware issue with a Dell UP2414Q which was released in 2013. Major problems like half the screen not working or no picture at all.
No you can't have the firmware update. You can exchange it for a refurbished monitor and "should" get the new firmware.
There's a 53 page Dell forum thread about that disaster of a monitor: https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/UP3214Q-UP2414Q-1-2-...
Amazing that nearly 10 years later they still can't update monitor firmware in the field.
No you can't have the firmware update. You can exchange it for a refurbished monitor and "should" get the new firmware.
There's a 53 page Dell forum thread about that disaster of a monitor: https://www.dell.com/community/Monitors/UP3214Q-UP2414Q-1-2-...
Amazing that nearly 10 years later they still can't update monitor firmware in the field.
I was having some issues with a Dell 4320 (?) and one of the things Dell support suggested was updating the firmware (download from Dell website). That was the first time I'd ever heard of updating firmware in a monitor.
Would be nice if the product just worked correctly off the shelf and didn't need firmware updates. Alas.
If it's going to need firmware updates, it should be able to get firmware updates.
If it's going to need firmware updates, it should be able to get firmware updates.
Yep, that's exactly it! It makes me very happy to know that I wasn't the only one to notice it(and it definitely felt like I was going mad for a while- seeing stutter where literally no tool could detect it).
I found a forum thread on Dell's forums about it ages ago, I remember people sharing the refresh rate override fix, but I wasn't aware that Dell did eventually "fix" it in a later batch of monitor.
That monitor did actually die for me literally 2 months ago(and just few months out of warranty, typical) but I was very glad to replace it with something else.
I found a forum thread on Dell's forums about it ages ago, I remember people sharing the refresh rate override fix, but I wasn't aware that Dell did eventually "fix" it in a later batch of monitor.
That monitor did actually die for me literally 2 months ago(and just few months out of warranty, typical) but I was very glad to replace it with something else.
I found out that Dell doesn't make the firmware user upgradeable when I checked for any for my AW3420DW. The annoyance I'm trying to fix is minor enough that I decided it's not worth RMAing it to hope I get one that is both in good condition and has the new firmware. I'll have to be pretty desperate to buy a monitor from Dell again though.
Can't you add a custom resolution of 60Hz? Monitor "overclocking" is a thing, that many support.
Oh wow, that would drive me mad. That's one of those subtle human-machine interaction problems where sometimes people don't believe you (and maybe you start to doubt yourself even). And then people start throwing around studies saying humans don't perceive this or that under some millisecond threshold or whatever.
Before high refresh rate screens, I was one of those people that would turn off v-sync in games because the additional input lag bugged me just enough, JUST on the edge of perception. I wasn't even a competitive player or particularly good, but it felt....mushy. Similar problem with playing old NES games on modern LEDs.
For many years I had a mechanical keyboard I loved, but slowly and subtly over time the enter key would miss a keystroke. It was like 1 out of 300 times maybe, but it was just often enough for me to start doubting my own fingers. Finally couldn't take it anymore and just bought a new keyboard.
Just goes to show that very subtle problems in a computer interfaces can have a big impact.
Before high refresh rate screens, I was one of those people that would turn off v-sync in games because the additional input lag bugged me just enough, JUST on the edge of perception. I wasn't even a competitive player or particularly good, but it felt....mushy. Similar problem with playing old NES games on modern LEDs.
For many years I had a mechanical keyboard I loved, but slowly and subtly over time the enter key would miss a keystroke. It was like 1 out of 300 times maybe, but it was just often enough for me to start doubting my own fingers. Finally couldn't take it anymore and just bought a new keyboard.
Just goes to show that very subtle problems in a computer interfaces can have a big impact.
We've had high refresh LCD monitors for well over a decade now and vsync is still the very first thing I disable. Lag is lag, high refresh or not
Similarly I have a monitor at home that, for whatever reason, will stutter on a game in fullscreen UNTIL i go and manually set its refresh rate.
I have to flip it between 59.95Hz and 60 Hz in the windows advanced settings, changing that setting basically makes the monitor re-initialize and then everything is fine. It happens every time I wake the monitor from sleep (ie: my computer rarely, if ever goes to sleep, but the monitors will turn off after 10 minutes of inactivity)
This only really happens with games. DirectX or Vulcan doesnt matter. Doesnt affect things like youtube, plex etc.
But any game in fullscreen or borderless windows on that screen, i have to basically just change that setting back and forth to keep my sanity.
I have to flip it between 59.95Hz and 60 Hz in the windows advanced settings, changing that setting basically makes the monitor re-initialize and then everything is fine. It happens every time I wake the monitor from sleep (ie: my computer rarely, if ever goes to sleep, but the monitors will turn off after 10 minutes of inactivity)
This only really happens with games. DirectX or Vulcan doesnt matter. Doesnt affect things like youtube, plex etc.
But any game in fullscreen or borderless windows on that screen, i have to basically just change that setting back and forth to keep my sanity.
This reminds me of a sound card I bought way back when (22 years ago or so); it was a wavetable-supporting, Soundblaster Pro-compatible card that I got on sale for 50% off without making any effort at all to look it up online or even check the kernel for Linux support.
It worked and sounded great in Windows; it also worked and sounded great in Linux, with one exception: the card supported ISA PNP, which was great, but the kernel module for the sound card wouldn't load unless I did `cat /proc/isapnp` first.
I had no idea why, and it took a few reboots and trial-and-error to narrow it down to this janky workaround, but it worked so I just configured modprobe to run `cat /proc/isapnp > /dev/null` before trying to load the module and I never had to worry about it again.
Technology sure is weird sometimes.
It worked and sounded great in Windows; it also worked and sounded great in Linux, with one exception: the card supported ISA PNP, which was great, but the kernel module for the sound card wouldn't load unless I did `cat /proc/isapnp` first.
I had no idea why, and it took a few reboots and trial-and-error to narrow it down to this janky workaround, but it worked so I just configured modprobe to run `cat /proc/isapnp > /dev/null` before trying to load the module and I never had to worry about it again.
Technology sure is weird sometimes.
Many years ago, I had an Athlon 64 workstation paired with some type of 3Ware SATA RAID controller (a 9650SE, I think).
Every other boot, the BIOS would fail to initialize the controller, leaving the computer stuck at a "non-bootable device" error until I could manually reboot it.
My solution? A perpetually plugged-in USB flash drive with a small boot loader that would simply reboot the machine again, set to a lower boot priority than the SATA RAID controller.
It was pretty stupid, but if it's stupid and it works...
Every other boot, the BIOS would fail to initialize the controller, leaving the computer stuck at a "non-bootable device" error until I could manually reboot it.
My solution? A perpetually plugged-in USB flash drive with a small boot loader that would simply reboot the machine again, set to a lower boot priority than the SATA RAID controller.
It was pretty stupid, but if it's stupid and it works...
I had something similar and just used the USB to hold ... LILO at the time? Can't recall.
My ThinkPad has something similar with the microSD card slot. You have to type "lspci" for it to notice there's an SD card inserted. I don't use the slot much so it's not a big deal but it's literally the only thing that doesn't play nice with Linux.
If there's a udev event generated when you insert the SD card, you could write a udev rule to exec `lspci` when it happens.
I keep a hacks file in my home directory so that when a random thing breaks after an upgrade or a new system, I can quickly review the fixes that I needed three years ago but that upstream couldn't be bothered to fix.
Open-source is the best worst-thing ever.
Open-source is the best worst-thing ever.
How are you able to pick between 59.95Hz and 60Hz? From what I've seen in Windows, it is keeping track of refresh rates as big rational numbers with full precision, but then when it's time to actually switch to a video mode, everything gets rounded to an integer, and it just picks whatever mode is closest to that integer value.
Would probably need to use Custom Resolution Utility to define a refresh rate that you really want.
Would probably need to use Custom Resolution Utility to define a refresh rate that you really want.
In windows its just
right click on desktop>Display Settings>scroll to bottom>Advanced Display Settings
Then select your monitor in the drop down and the refresh rate. Which is negotiated by the monitor and the video card. I suppose unplugging and pluggin the cable back in may help. But ive changed cables, bought new ones, tried adapters to change the type (ie: hdmi to DP etc).
Its just something with the display. And Im too lazy to bend over and unplug/plug it in, so i just do the refresh rate trick.
right click on desktop>Display Settings>scroll to bottom>Advanced Display Settings
Then select your monitor in the drop down and the refresh rate. Which is negotiated by the monitor and the video card. I suppose unplugging and pluggin the cable back in may help. But ive changed cables, bought new ones, tried adapters to change the type (ie: hdmi to DP etc).
Its just something with the display. And Im too lazy to bend over and unplug/plug it in, so i just do the refresh rate trick.
Now that sounds a lot like a video version of an audio issue that I have with my Android phone and a BluStream hands-free kit. When playing music from any source, there will be skips at long, random intervals. I could back up the song, play the suspect phrase over, and it would be perfect. It's almost like there's some sort of subtle clock mismatch somewhere that eventually can't be papered over.
I've had it happen on more than one phone, and I'd also note that my Sony headphones don't skip.
I've had it happen on more than one phone, and I'd also note that my Sony headphones don't skip.
>But of course if you used it with a PS4 then you didn't have any way to do that and just had to suffer this stutter every 20 seconds.
You could splice cable DDC lines to I²C EEPROM programmed with patched EDID data.
You could splice cable DDC lines to I²C EEPROM programmed with patched EDID data.
Brilliant solution, but I would’ve dumped the defective-by-design monitor at that stage.
You can get EDID spoofers on Amazon for about 20$ for these kinds of issues.
I'm really struggling to understand why a monitor would be designed this way. It's already receiving a pixel clock and all the pixels, horizontal fields, and entire frames at 59.95Hz. There's absolutely no need for the monitor to be keeping track of a separate 60Hz clock anywhere.
All I can figure is that it might have some motion blur or other interpolation feature and it's holding frames back after receiving them and displaying them from an internal buffer at 60Hz. In this case, you'll get occasional (but rare) tearing/stuttering no matter what since the computer's clock and the LCDs hypothetical clock are not syncronized.
All I can figure is that it might have some motion blur or other interpolation feature and it's holding frames back after receiving them and displaying them from an internal buffer at 60Hz. In this case, you'll get occasional (but rare) tearing/stuttering no matter what since the computer's clock and the LCDs hypothetical clock are not syncronized.
So I'm only guessing, but I think it's because the internal display driver was actually working at 60Hz, but the monitor was just advertising the refresh speed incorrectly to any connected device as 59.95Hz. The error would accumulate and after about 20 seconds the monitor had to "stop" and resynchronize the clock.
It's kinda hard to design hardware driven by someone else's clock.
The easy and lazy solution is to generate your own clock signal at the rate you want, and then to buffer the data from their closeish-clock to your own. Obviously this has the downside of an extra frames latency and the occasional dropped frame when the clocks drift.
The easy and lazy solution is to generate your own clock signal at the rate you want, and then to buffer the data from their closeish-clock to your own. Obviously this has the downside of an extra frames latency and the occasional dropped frame when the clocks drift.
An LCD monitor that buffers frames? That would be really bad. The typically HDMI receiver chip does the lazy thing. Which is simply to receive pixels on one end, and transmit them out the other at the same rate that it receives them at. No buffering.
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7613.html
https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7613.html
Typically monitors buffer frames because the LCD matrix itself has a maximum and minimum refresh rate - and the user may provide an input signal outside that rate.
Even so, the anti-ghosting compensation algorithms typically only work at one rate.
Even so, the anti-ghosting compensation algorithms typically only work at one rate.
This reminds me of a weird phenomenon in my parents living room: Our Samsung TV would stutter and colors would distort when lighting the candles with a lighter (one of those long-neck trigger models). Never figured out why but I suspect an EM pulse was created with each trigger "click", which affected the cable signal.
(I’m the author.) I’ve tested with a different GPU and screen. The article focuses on the factors that made a positive impact on the problem. I’ve also swapped cables, disks, PSU, and other components.
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It looks like with a series of changes they were able to mitigate the issue almost completely, but it's still there and the motherboard is obviously deficient in some way.
They mentioned they put the ram in 2 years ago and they've had this issue for 2 months. I suspect maybe it started when their OS's started using their TPM's but it's possible their board has just broken randomly. Likely on a hardware level.
I do see value in diagnosing the issue and making a post about mitigation's. I love people who do this so others with the issue can find it and get their boards refunded/RMA'd before their warranties expire. But once the tpm/ftpm was identified as being the issue and it was hardware/firmware related, they need to get a new board, not more mitigations (hopefully by getting a refund/RMA so the board manufacturer doesn't get a pass on this). I don't see how someone working in the tech space (we are VERY privileged salary wise) would tolerate having obviously faulty electronics.
They mentioned they put the ram in 2 years ago and they've had this issue for 2 months. I suspect maybe it started when their OS's started using their TPM's but it's possible their board has just broken randomly. Likely on a hardware level.
I do see value in diagnosing the issue and making a post about mitigation's. I love people who do this so others with the issue can find it and get their boards refunded/RMA'd before their warranties expire. But once the tpm/ftpm was identified as being the issue and it was hardware/firmware related, they need to get a new board, not more mitigations (hopefully by getting a refund/RMA so the board manufacturer doesn't get a pass on this). I don't see how someone working in the tech space (we are VERY privileged salary wise) would tolerate having obviously faulty electronics.
> The fTPM clearly affects the system stability, even under an OS where it’s not in use.
This is probably a code that works in SMM mode, and it has a priority even over ring 0 code. SMM is one of the worst CPU features, it is basically a backdoor in your system that can do anything and you cannot even see it. Even if you run Linux you have no control over SMM code, it can hang your system and you cannot even debug it.
Also this shows a weakness of an "open" PC model where poorly tested hardware and low quality firmware from different vendors are assembled together. I cannot imagine this happening on an iPhone for example.
This is probably a code that works in SMM mode, and it has a priority even over ring 0 code. SMM is one of the worst CPU features, it is basically a backdoor in your system that can do anything and you cannot even see it. Even if you run Linux you have no control over SMM code, it can hang your system and you cannot even debug it.
Also this shows a weakness of an "open" PC model where poorly tested hardware and low quality firmware from different vendors are assembled together. I cannot imagine this happening on an iPhone for example.
And it's frankly absurd that ASUS/AMD etc won't run a test to see if the board runs under Windows/Linux without stuttering
ATI drivers back then were already in a different league of quality than nVidia ones, looking like amateur hour sometimes
SMM code writers seem to not give a F about any OS except Windows (current version) and even then.
If AMD wants to win the datacenter they need to be extra attentive to this
ATI drivers back then were already in a different league of quality than nVidia ones, looking like amateur hour sometimes
SMM code writers seem to not give a F about any OS except Windows (current version) and even then.
If AMD wants to win the datacenter they need to be extra attentive to this
> This is probably a code that works in SMM mode
AMD fTPM runs on the PSP coprocessor, not on the x86 cores.
AMD fTPM runs on the PSP coprocessor, not on the x86 cores.
I knew this was going to be due to the AMD fTPM stuttering. I've had it on my machine since I switched back to AMD in 2019. The BIOS updates haven't helped, and the discrete TPM I tried just made the system unbootable. I'm just used to it now.
Honestly, as much as AMD's processors are often great value for money, I have never had a completely stable glitch-free AMD system.
Honestly, as much as AMD's processors are often great value for money, I have never had a completely stable glitch-free AMD system.
I’ve built several AMD systems over the past 20 years, and until now all the ones with nvidia GPUs were absolutely rock solid wrt hardware. The Radeon builds suffered various mostly minor GPU driver problems.
But son of a bitcoin, my current PC has this exact stuttering problem! And all this time I just assumed it was Windows being stupid about normal I/O. But come to think of it, I did recently have a conversation with my even-hardware-geekier brother in which I said something like “How in the hell can Windows have become so sloppy that the mouse cursor can be regularly interrupted during normal use? That should be logically impossible by design.”
But now I bet it’s this motherboard thing preempting everything and it all makes sense.
But son of a bitcoin, my current PC has this exact stuttering problem! And all this time I just assumed it was Windows being stupid about normal I/O. But come to think of it, I did recently have a conversation with my even-hardware-geekier brother in which I said something like “How in the hell can Windows have become so sloppy that the mouse cursor can be regularly interrupted during normal use? That should be logically impossible by design.”
But now I bet it’s this motherboard thing preempting everything and it all makes sense.
For what it's worth, I use my desktop for work and gaming. All AMD system for the past 3 years (CPU/GPU). No glitches or stuttering. Windows 10 with fTPM disabled since I have no interest in Windows 11.
Been AMD only for CPU in my desktop the past 15 years or so and haven't had these glitch/stutter issues.
All of this anecdotal, but I just find it odd you've never had a "stable glitch-free AMD system." But it might vary depending on motherboard, motherboard OEM and motherboard chipset. (Was on Asus X470, now on MSI X570.)
Been AMD only for CPU in my desktop the past 15 years or so and haven't had these glitch/stutter issues.
All of this anecdotal, but I just find it odd you've never had a "stable glitch-free AMD system." But it might vary depending on motherboard, motherboard OEM and motherboard chipset. (Was on Asus X470, now on MSI X570.)
A long time ago, trying to play a Battlefield 1942 star wars mod with my Radeon 9700pro would crash my computer after ~10 minutes. Base game was fine. EoD was fine. Everything else was fine. Except this mod. No amount of tweaking helped. Later, upgrading to a 9800pro, problems disappeared. I didn't want it to be like that but it did.
I had a 9800 pro and I could not crack like 8 fps in battlefield 1942. Support on either end shrugged.
Strange, I had a 9700 Pro and played BF1942 more hours than any other game in my life. Big 1600x1200 CRT and it held an okay frame rate.
My thinking is that it's not the AMD CPUs that are the problem, but rather the Intel chipsets and chipset drivers generally seem to have fewer issues. It could also be that Microsoft and others do more testing on Intel-based systems.
For what it's worth, I also indirectly support quite a lot of corporate systems, and we've had a fair amount of flakiness with AMD Thinkpads. Not every laptop has issues, and not in every situation, but we get issues significantly more often for the AMD machines - this is visible clearly in the stats we keep. Anything involving docks seems to be particularly problematic. It could be that Lenovo are just making terrible devices and I'm unfairly blaming AMD - but the Intel ones are rock solid.
Also I've used TPM for years, possibly since Windows 7 I think, in order to get full disk encryption with Bitlocker. More recently I've been playing with remote attestation.
For what it's worth, I also indirectly support quite a lot of corporate systems, and we've had a fair amount of flakiness with AMD Thinkpads. Not every laptop has issues, and not in every situation, but we get issues significantly more often for the AMD machines - this is visible clearly in the stats we keep. Anything involving docks seems to be particularly problematic. It could be that Lenovo are just making terrible devices and I'm unfairly blaming AMD - but the Intel ones are rock solid.
Also I've used TPM for years, possibly since Windows 7 I think, in order to get full disk encryption with Bitlocker. More recently I've been playing with remote attestation.
Installing a TPM module and then failing to get the computer to boot suggests that they don't know how to use the TPM in concert with an operating system. It's possible they don't even know what TPM is for or why they enabled/installed it in the first place.
Of course I know how to use a TPM and why one might use it. It's rather unfair of you to assume that I don't because the hardware I bought doesn't function properly.
The computer failed to POST after I put in the dTPM, nothing to do with the OS. It's either an issue with the dTPM or the motherboard, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was and didn't want to keep spending money. The motherboard manufacturers provide very little information about how their dTPM interfaces work, and nowadays it can be difficult to find genuine OEM dTPMs due to Win11-related stock shortages.
The computer failed to POST after I put in the dTPM, nothing to do with the OS. It's either an issue with the dTPM or the motherboard, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was and didn't want to keep spending money. The motherboard manufacturers provide very little information about how their dTPM interfaces work, and nowadays it can be difficult to find genuine OEM dTPMs due to Win11-related stock shortages.
Failure to boot after replacing the TPM is a key management problem on behalf of the user. Not a hardware problem.
Latest motherboard BIOS might fix it:
https://www.techpowerup.com/295821/amd-releases-agesa-v2-1-2...
"This particular version of AGESA gains importance to those on Windows 11, as it corrects a performance-stuttering issue caused due to frequent polling of the fTPM by the OS."
https://www.techpowerup.com/295821/amd-releases-agesa-v2-1-2...
"This particular version of AGESA gains importance to those on Windows 11, as it corrects a performance-stuttering issue caused due to frequent polling of the fTPM by the OS."
Indeed it's supposed to, but it doesn't fix it for me. Even if it did, it's pretty annoying that this problem has been around for at least 3 years without a fix.
(I’m the author.) That’s the version I’m running.
Sorry to hear, I have the same problem and was hoping the update would fix it. Although the latest (beta) update did improve things a lot.
I've had a 5900X+X570 machine since late 2020, with fTPM enabled, and never noticed any stuttering. It's a completely flawless system, especially compared to the Intel 4790K machine it replaced, which had loads of random issues like these, unexplainable performance dips and crashes which no tweak could ever fix.
It really seems to vary based on motherboard make and model.
My high-end x570 board from ASUS initially exhibited this behavior, but it was rectified rather quickly with a BIOS update.
I still ended up putting in a real TPM module for convenience reasons. It's hard to experiment with bios settings when half of them end up wiping the fTPM, necessitating me to punch in my BitLocker key on next boot.
Maybe this fiasco combined with Windows 11 will finally push motherboard manufacturers to just build a real TPM into their products rather than relying on these janky fTPM/PTT solutions.
My high-end x570 board from ASUS initially exhibited this behavior, but it was rectified rather quickly with a BIOS update.
I still ended up putting in a real TPM module for convenience reasons. It's hard to experiment with bios settings when half of them end up wiping the fTPM, necessitating me to punch in my BitLocker key on next boot.
Maybe this fiasco combined with Windows 11 will finally push motherboard manufacturers to just build a real TPM into their products rather than relying on these janky fTPM/PTT solutions.
I've had a couple... Two stand out.
One was my glorious AXP1800 + Gigabyte GA-7DXR.
Ok so it -started- glitching eventually, but that was because capacitor plague and not the AMD-ness. But that was a workhorse machine of mine through most of college. The few crashes that I -did- have, were related to other components like video/audio(1) that were no better in a 'full intel' setup.
The other was an unsupported config; Tyan Tiger MPX with Dual 1.0Ghz Morgan Durons, Running Windows 2000. Fun little box.
(1) - At the start of the century, one of the best things I did for system reliability was ditch Creative Labs and their drivers for the Glorious Crystal/HTEnvy cards.
One was my glorious AXP1800 + Gigabyte GA-7DXR.
Ok so it -started- glitching eventually, but that was because capacitor plague and not the AMD-ness. But that was a workhorse machine of mine through most of college. The few crashes that I -did- have, were related to other components like video/audio(1) that were no better in a 'full intel' setup.
The other was an unsupported config; Tyan Tiger MPX with Dual 1.0Ghz Morgan Durons, Running Windows 2000. Fun little box.
(1) - At the start of the century, one of the best things I did for system reliability was ditch Creative Labs and their drivers for the Glorious Crystal/HTEnvy cards.
So why do you have f/TPM enabled in the first place? There was no Windows 11 back in 2019. Do you have an actual need for it?
I use Bitlocker FDE.
And frankly, having to disable this bit of hardware that you paid for because it doesn't work properly is bullshit.
And frankly, having to disable this bit of hardware that you paid for because it doesn't work properly is bullshit.
AMD's fTPM is a gratis bonus as far as I'm concerned. Bitlocker's disk encryption can be used without TPM. It's less convenient - Windows needs to read the cryptographic key from a USB flash drive at boot - but I'm willing to bet it's much easier to get used to than 3 years of glitching and stuttering.
It's not a "gratis bonus" when I specifically buy a device because I require that feature.
Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
> It's not a "gratis bonus" when I specifically buy a device because I require that feature.
I don't understand, since fTPM specifically isn't a requirement. Any TPM will work. If you had bought Intel you would have paid more for just the CPU alone, regardless of the cost of a discrete TPM.
> Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
With f/TPM and no PIN you're storing the keys in plain-text right next to the encrypted content. It's like hanging the keys to your door on the knob. This effectively cancels the point of full-disk encryption for your implied personal use. I cannot believe what I'm reading.
I don't understand, since fTPM specifically isn't a requirement. Any TPM will work. If you had bought Intel you would have paid more for just the CPU alone, regardless of the cost of a discrete TPM.
> Besides Windows 11 requiring a TPM, which was known to be on the cards for a while now, storing the key on a USB drive is not functionally the same as the TPM. It means either the key material is stored in plaintext on the USB, which is pointless, or I still need to use a PIN. I need my computer to be able to boot without intervention, so that isn't an option.
With f/TPM and no PIN you're storing the keys in plain-text right next to the encrypted content. It's like hanging the keys to your door on the knob. This effectively cancels the point of full-disk encryption for your implied personal use. I cannot believe what I'm reading.
Why is this hard to understand? The CPU and platform is marketed as having an fTPM, but everyone's experience over the last 3 years is that it's faulty. It doesn't matter if there's an alternative solution involving buying a separate device, and it doesn't matter if you think the fTPM isn't necessary. The point is that the features they claimed to support were faulty, untested, and unfixed for many years. That's not acceptable.
Also, your description of how an fTPM works is wrong. The fTPM on AMD is provided by the AMD PSP TEE, which measures your execution environment then seals the drive encryption key. The platform garauntees that it will not unseal the drive encryption key other than to the same combination of trusted hardware and cryptographically verified software that previously sealed the key. The hardware is tamper resistent and has a relatively good track record. dTPM vs fTPM is an active debate, but so far the most practical sniff attack on the TPM only works on dTPMs, though that's partially Microsoft's fault.
If a hard drive is stolen, it is useless without the CPU. If a whole computer is stolen, the data will only be accessible to a very advanced adversary. The list of people on earth who can tamper or trace a CPU to successfully exfiltrate an fTPM key is probably a short list, and nearly all of them will be security researchers, state-level adversaries or APTs. In fact, many government and other highly secure organisations rely on the security of the TPM for disk encryption.
Analogy wise, it's more like having a bouncer guarding your door who only lets you in once he's carefully checked all your biometrics. And if you try to push past him, he blows up the house so you can't get in.
However, would I trust a TPM in isolation if I was likely to be physically raided by the CIA? Probably not.
Also, your description of how an fTPM works is wrong. The fTPM on AMD is provided by the AMD PSP TEE, which measures your execution environment then seals the drive encryption key. The platform garauntees that it will not unseal the drive encryption key other than to the same combination of trusted hardware and cryptographically verified software that previously sealed the key. The hardware is tamper resistent and has a relatively good track record. dTPM vs fTPM is an active debate, but so far the most practical sniff attack on the TPM only works on dTPMs, though that's partially Microsoft's fault.
If a hard drive is stolen, it is useless without the CPU. If a whole computer is stolen, the data will only be accessible to a very advanced adversary. The list of people on earth who can tamper or trace a CPU to successfully exfiltrate an fTPM key is probably a short list, and nearly all of them will be security researchers, state-level adversaries or APTs. In fact, many government and other highly secure organisations rely on the security of the TPM for disk encryption.
Analogy wise, it's more like having a bouncer guarding your door who only lets you in once he's carefully checked all your biometrics. And if you try to push past him, he blows up the house so you can't get in.
However, would I trust a TPM in isolation if I was likely to be physically raided by the CIA? Probably not.
> everyone's experience over the last 3 years is that it's faulty
Not everyone's. I use the fTPM on a few different Ryzen systems and I don't seem to have any issues. Maybe I'm just lucky though.
Not everyone's. I use the fTPM on a few different Ryzen systems and I don't seem to have any issues. Maybe I'm just lucky though.
> With f/TPM and no PIN you're storing the keys in plain-text right next to the encrypted content.
Not true. If you change the boot parameters it won't release the key. If you were to try and boot a live OS to try and extract the data without respecting ACLs or something, you wouldn't be able to access the key. You also can't actively read the key from the TPM once the system has booted.
Sure, there might be some attackers who may be able to mess with the OS post-boot to have it give up its info, but even the above-average thief off the street isn't going to be able to access my data.
Not true. If you change the boot parameters it won't release the key. If you were to try and boot a live OS to try and extract the data without respecting ACLs or something, you wouldn't be able to access the key. You also can't actively read the key from the TPM once the system has booted.
Sure, there might be some attackers who may be able to mess with the OS post-boot to have it give up its info, but even the above-average thief off the street isn't going to be able to access my data.
I have the fTPM enabled on a few AMD Ryzen CPU computers I own. I like using Bitlocker even on my personal machines. I've got a lot of personal information on my computers, FDE helps to keep my data safe in case a drive goes missing.
BitLocker can be used without TPM, for example with a password or a key file on a USB drive. And those are probably safer options if your whole computer gets stolen.
The experience of doing it with a password is pretty poor compared to using a TPM. Every time the computer reboots, I need to type in the password. If it is a remote machine, I have to physically be at the station to type in the password.
Keeping the key file on a USB drive isn't exactly safe either, as there's a high likelihood that flash drive is probably going to be near my computer when stolen. Also, that flash drive may be active and plugged when the system is running, exposing it to the machine directly. Having that key material easily accessible on a flash drive makes it less protected than using the TPM.
Using the TPM gives me a better experience and depending on how things are handled a far more secure way of handling the key. Its way easier to grab the key file off the flash drive than coaxing it out of the TPM without booting the trusted boot process.
Keeping the key file on a USB drive isn't exactly safe either, as there's a high likelihood that flash drive is probably going to be near my computer when stolen. Also, that flash drive may be active and plugged when the system is running, exposing it to the machine directly. Having that key material easily accessible on a flash drive makes it less protected than using the TPM.
Using the TPM gives me a better experience and depending on how things are handled a far more secure way of handling the key. Its way easier to grab the key file off the flash drive than coaxing it out of the TPM without booting the trusted boot process.
They are only safer if you always unplug the USB drive and take it with you. Which I know I would never do reliably enough to offer protection(and I would probably lose the drive eventually which is then actually a complete loss of data unless you have a backup, but if you have a backup then that's yet another weakness in the system). A built in TPM module might have some unknown fault that hasn't been disclosed yet, but I think that's about 10000x less likely than the chance of me forgetting/losing the USB drive with encryption key.
Bitlocker/FDE is a valid use case. I personally prefer to protect sensitive information with software-based solutions that are portable between various operating systems.
>Honestly, as much as AMD's processors are often great value for money, I have never had a completely stable glitch-free AMD system.
If they are glitchy how can they be great value?
I've had the same experience over the past decades - I will never be buying AMD again.
If they are glitchy how can they be great value?
I've had the same experience over the past decades - I will never be buying AMD again.
This is a known issue with a fix that was reported a while back:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-issues-fix-and-workaro...
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-issues-fix-and-workaro...
That's mentioned in TFA. It doesn't fix the issue, and might have actually introduced it according to OP.
Also, he's using an AMD graphics card. AMD GPUs are infamous for stuttering issues and framerate problems on Windows.
I tried a RX580 pre-pandemic and it was both a space heater with massive power consumption, framerates were wildly inconsistent in several games, and I had game crashes.
Switched to a GTX1060 and boom, problems gone.
I tried a RX580 pre-pandemic and it was both a space heater with massive power consumption, framerates were wildly inconsistent in several games, and I had game crashes.
Switched to a GTX1060 and boom, problems gone.
In the past, I'd buy Intel + Nvidia to hope to avoid these sorts of weird troubleshooting cases. This occurred because I had a first-gen AMD Athlon and ran Win2k, where support for Thunderbird CPUs/mobos was not complete, resulting in random crashes that required a mix of BIOS, Windows, and driver updates to completely resolve.
Nowadays, I have no idea if that advice (Intel + Nvidia) is still sound. There are way more AMD users than before, and computers are more complicated than they were 20 years ago.
Nowadays, I have no idea if that advice (Intel + Nvidia) is still sound. There are way more AMD users than before, and computers are more complicated than they were 20 years ago.
> I had a first-gen AMD Athlon and ran Win2k, where support for Thunderbird CPUs/mobos was not complete
Nit: Thunderbird was the third iteration of Athlon and I only remember this because I had an Athlon 700, which came on a Slot A cartridge (!) and had the L2 cache as separate chips
That same system also had one of the first GeForce cards. The term "GPU" was not unknown before GeForce, but it was the first time the mainstream computing media started using it regularly.
That was the first computer I built with my own cash and boy it was not cheap. (21" CRT monitor and dual 10k RPM SCSI drives...)
Nit: Thunderbird was the third iteration of Athlon and I only remember this because I had an Athlon 700, which came on a Slot A cartridge (!) and had the L2 cache as separate chips
That same system also had one of the first GeForce cards. The term "GPU" was not unknown before GeForce, but it was the first time the mainstream computing media started using it regularly.
That was the first computer I built with my own cash and boy it was not cheap. (21" CRT monitor and dual 10k RPM SCSI drives...)
> computers are more complicated than they were 20 years ago.
Feels like Windows (maybe modern PCs) just doesn't work as well as it used to. Ran Windows 7 x64 for years with very little complaint, 8.1 wasn't great UI wise but worked.
10 onward just seems to lag & crash more. Totally crazy theory would be that binary compatibility (and dependencies) doesn't work well once the original author of a piece of code has retired (or died).
10 onward just seems to lag & crash more. Totally crazy theory would be that binary compatibility (and dependencies) doesn't work well once the original author of a piece of code has retired (or died).
Hmm. Wouldn't sticking to any Intel CPU with an IGP be enough ? Haven't had frustrating problems since I stick to that for Linux. But I haven't been really playing on Linux for years now, I don't have the time to experiment much. If it doesn't work at first try then it's windows or console.
I presume anybody who is already using a dedicated GPU would not be happy with the performance of Intel's integrated GPUs.
My bad, I mixed up thoughts about dev/office usage and gaming.
For dev and desktop usage no IGP has let me down. Unless work needs a dedicated GPU to be done I think an IGP is enough for everything else these days.
I don't think people using dedicated GPU wouldn't see differences with an IGP in day to day usage.
For dev and desktop usage no IGP has let me down. Unless work needs a dedicated GPU to be done I think an IGP is enough for everything else these days.
I don't think people using dedicated GPU wouldn't see differences with an IGP in day to day usage.
I had issues once with my gaming setup (Arch Linux, Ryzen 5 3600, rtx 2060 6gb, MSI b350m gaming pro, 16gb ddr4 1600).
The only thing I did was to set the governor from powersave, which came by default configured, to ondemand. Graphic stutters immediately went away and performance got close to that on windows.
I suggest anyone having performance issues under Linux to check their governor.
The only thing I did was to set the governor from powersave, which came by default configured, to ondemand. Graphic stutters immediately went away and performance got close to that on windows.
I suggest anyone having performance issues under Linux to check their governor.
AMDGPU power profiles were giving me problems in VR in Arch Linux as well. I installed corectrl to automatically change modes whenever VR is running.
This is the kind of thing that makes me chuckle every time I see a comment like ‘just build your own PC - they work better and save money’.
Yeah, both can be true, but when it goes wrong, it can be very difficult and expensive to troubleshoot.
Yeah, both can be true, but when it goes wrong, it can be very difficult and expensive to troubleshoot.
I've had these kinds of weird issues happen on named brand computers too.
One annoying one is a 2014 HP laptop with Beats Audio. The laptop has a non-standard internal speaker setup. With the installed Windows 8 & Beats Audio drivers it sounds nice. Under Linux by default the speakers sound like a muffled tin can. Using a couple of tools and some terminal commands everything is right as rain. I nearly exclusively use Linux, but I had a need to work on some windows stuff so the laptop was pulled out and upgraded to windows 10. As soon as I ran some audio, tin can sounds. I've looked over and over for drivers, HP doesn't support Beats Audio anymore, and their replacement drivers that claim to work don't. Now if I need audio from that laptop I either have to use linux or I have to use the headphone port.
One annoying one is a 2014 HP laptop with Beats Audio. The laptop has a non-standard internal speaker setup. With the installed Windows 8 & Beats Audio drivers it sounds nice. Under Linux by default the speakers sound like a muffled tin can. Using a couple of tools and some terminal commands everything is right as rain. I nearly exclusively use Linux, but I had a need to work on some windows stuff so the laptop was pulled out and upgraded to windows 10. As soon as I ran some audio, tin can sounds. I've looked over and over for drivers, HP doesn't support Beats Audio anymore, and their replacement drivers that claim to work don't. Now if I need audio from that laptop I either have to use linux or I have to use the headphone port.
I've had way more issues on commodity systems than any PC I've built. Every sub-$1500 laptop I've ever bought has had some form of hardware issue. Anything from CPU incompatibilities with OS low power states to the machine I'm currently typing on which regularly BSODs due to the absolute dumpster fire of Realtek wireless drivers.
My stationary PC is a modern AMD Zen 3 setup. It runs Windows 10, TPM completely disabled, no stuttering whatsoever.
My stationary PC is a modern AMD Zen 3 setup. It runs Windows 11 pro for workstations latest developer release, TPM and other settings completely enabled, no stuttering whatsoever.
That's great. Eventually I'll have to emigrate from Windows 10 as well. Hopefully AGESA 1.2.0.7 solves the problem.
I have a Windows 10, 5900X+X570 machine with fTPM enabled and I get zero stuttering. Still using a pre-release BIOS with early Zen 3 support from August 2020 since I never saw any need to update it.
I’ve had an audio crackle that happens only sometimes on my PC for years now.
Windows 10, Z170-A motherboard with driver for built in audio
Tried different cables, inputs (optical vs aux etc) installing different drivers, old drivers, new drivers, nothing fixes it
Super annoying when I want to listen to spotify or YouTube or anything
Windows 10, Z170-A motherboard with driver for built in audio
Tried different cables, inputs (optical vs aux etc) installing different drivers, old drivers, new drivers, nothing fixes it
Super annoying when I want to listen to spotify or YouTube or anything
I too had issues with loud pops and crackles from my speakers and tried just about everything except picking apart the speakers (hardware is scary). Eventually I did investigate the speaker internals and the culprit turned out to be a bad potentiometer on the back of the subwoofer; I bypassed it with a wire which fixed the problem completely.
Probably your speakers, have you tried other ones? Cheap speakers sometimes (or OS "power saving" features) turns off various components after being inactive for a while, and when they come alive again, there is a pop happening as electricity enters the circuits. Happens if you turn on whatever the speaker is connected to after turning on the speakers as well, while vice-versa is fine with no pop.
I was hoping to read how he debugged his system and found the rout cause. Instead I just get some ramblings from a guy who just tried different things from stuff he read somewhere.
Wow this guy is really selling the AMD+Linux experience. Improved from 2 crashes per hour to once per 4 hours? Nobody I know would tolerate either of those.
He had the same problem in AMD+Windows. Things finally got better on a beta version of Windows.
If he hadn't been using Linux, the entire experience would have been completely mysterious. Microsoft releases an update and problems magically go away. Not much of a blog post and not much to understand. The blog post ends with a plea to make problems easier to diagnose and understand, not with a plea for corporate monopolies to fix our problems for us.
If he hadn't been using Linux, the entire experience would have been completely mysterious. Microsoft releases an update and problems magically go away. Not much of a blog post and not much to understand. The blog post ends with a plea to make problems easier to diagnose and understand, not with a plea for corporate monopolies to fix our problems for us.
Yeah, Apple could run that post as an ad. It’s sad reading that and realizing that my 90s Debian desktop was _more_ stable.
Actually, a reason (of many) I switched from Apple to Windows was Apple's well-known audio drop-out fiasco caused by Apple's T2 security chip essentially hijacking data lanes when low-latency audio processing needed them. Here is an image of an audio capture of the T2 causing a hiccup:
https://tidbits.com/uploads/2019/04/T2-hiccup.jpg
This image was linked from this article:
https://tidbits.com/2019/04/05/what-does-the-t2-chip-mean-fo...
https://tidbits.com/uploads/2019/04/T2-hiccup.jpg
This image was linked from this article:
https://tidbits.com/2019/04/05/what-does-the-t2-chip-mean-fo...
Reminds me of the days when you had to optimize your IRQ's
Big reason why lot of audio engineers use an external audio box - latency is super noticeable with audio and motherboards are rarely going to cut it
Big reason why lot of audio engineers use an external audio box - latency is super noticeable with audio and motherboards are rarely going to cut it
Another reason for a proper, external audio interface is noise. My previous ASUS mother board introduced a noticiable buzzing noise when using it for receiving audio, even though it was claimed that the isolation was good. Maybe something else in my desktop was outputting stronger interference than what they had tested with. Newer ASUS motherboard doesn't suffer from the same issue.
Although the noise sucked, the real reason I got a external audio interface was the 1/4"/XLR connections anyways, so matters less.
Although the noise sucked, the real reason I got a external audio interface was the 1/4"/XLR connections anyways, so matters less.
I am scared of upgrading from my i7-6700 system because it is so rock solid - it never crashes and just runs for days without weirdness or Windows 10 imploding on itself.
The random crashing at low usage sounds very similar to an issue I had with my previous 5950x. There seems to be a real problem with 59{00,50}x’s where you either need to disable PBO (I think that’s the name) or bump voltages.
After finding out it was a silicon lottery thing I sent my cpu right back to Amazon and the replacement has been perfectly fine from first boot (outside of figuring out the upper memory clock for 4 dimms)
When I assembled by PC in 2020, stuttering was caused by the RAM RGB light driver. No more GSkill-Z Trident RGB in this box. Or any RGB driver.
That was just your PC playing "red light/green light"
There was a twitter thread recently about how Mac people never built their own computers so don’t know what things can be like. But I have built my own computers and I hated dealing with issues like this. There’s a reason I don’t build my own computers anymore.
So ”Fixed” is relative - more like “good enough for my satisfaction”.
Kudos for sticking out for so long. I would’ve given up a lot sooner.
Kudos for sticking out for so long. I would’ve given up a lot sooner.
I ended up having extremely weird stuttering issues where the mouse would suddenly take several seconds to move across the screen on a high-end 64 core threadripper machine. Turning off mouse trails in Windows completely solved the problem.
>The mainboard reverts to fTPM if the hardware TPM is removed. It doesn’t have a way to disable the TPM.
Can anyone verify this? Sounds fucked up.
Can anyone verify this? Sounds fucked up.
> so I quickly reinstalled
Dude needs to stop quickly reinstalling things. Instead they need to slowly work through what is going on in the operating system that could be causing the observed issue. What does the Windows system information program say when it is run as an administrator? Is secure boot enabled? Is the pcr7 configuration on "binding possible"? What about kernel dma protection or virtualization based security?
Dude needs to stop quickly reinstalling things. Instead they need to slowly work through what is going on in the operating system that could be causing the observed issue. What does the Windows system information program say when it is run as an administrator? Is secure boot enabled? Is the pcr7 configuration on "binding possible"? What about kernel dma protection or virtualization based security?
[deleted]
He deserves the stuttering based on the amount of ads alone.
To save you the story of weeks-long debugging efforts - the problem turned out to the monitor. It was a Dell Ultrasharp 25", and (as I now know) they all had an issue where the monitor would freeze roughly every 20 seconds for a frame, because the monitor was advertising the refresh rate to windows as 59.95Hz but it was actually refreshing at 60Hz internally - the timing would get out of sync pretty much exactly every 20 seconds, causing the monitor to "pause" and freeze - which looked like stutter when playing games. The solution was using some kind of program(forgot the name now) which basically overrode the refresh information being sent from the monitor and forced windows to refresh at exactly 60Hz and no less - then it worked fine. But of course if you used it with a PS4 then you didn't have any way to do that and just had to suffer this stutter every 20 seconds.