T520 random stutter on video playback

[zephxiii]

I have a T520 running Win 10 with SSD, i7 CPU, and Nvidia GPU that i'm using for my HTPC.

Every once in a while (not often) I'll get a stutter during video playback that's most apparent while streaming in Chrome. I've gotten all the latest drivers for it, and disabled CPU throttling. The T520 runs great with no issues...though I thought it did behave funny when I was trying to force a specific gfx mode (likely discrete only) in BIOS.

Wondering if anyone else has ran into this.

[dr_st]

Are you sure it's a video playback issue and not an internet congestion issue?

[zephxiii]

No it seems more like a system stutter. Audio goes RRRR and video stops etc. Sometimes I can see it effect playback of an mkv file on local LAN but it is much more subtle.

[zephxiii]

Def a system stutter. I was in 10 Settings and the system stuttered when it did a popup highlight and sound of an item in settings.

There's a number of threads I have found about this on lenovo forums so I will try a solution or two out. Here is one for example.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T ... d-p/691441

Interestingly I am only using wifi. However i did see some funny behavior (link fail etc.) when I had a desktop connected to the T520 with LAN and WIFI bridged. Maybe there is something funny with LAN driver.

[thinkpadcollection]

Have a T420 with win10 current version, here with iGPU (integrated), i7-2640m, total 16GB of pair Elpida 2Rx8 module DDR3-1333, gigabit ethernet (12.12.140.22 supplied by intel), 6205 wifi microsoft 15.16.0.2.
Microsoft supplied standard SATA AHCI controller, conexant 20672 smartaudio HD. Using Liteon 256GB SSD model LCS-256M6S which is marvell controller with dual chips ram buffer, aligned.

No stutters.

What is your memory module brand and part number? This can be gleaned from CPU-Z under SPD tab. Also you can know the bios firmware version from CPU-Z under "motherboard" tab, mine is current 1.46. Also same tab can show you the MTM type as Model: mine is 4236NUU which is 4236-NUU.

Work with your video utilty that is supplied by Nvidia and intel see if you can lock one to GPU or iGPU mode only to prevent switching during playback. Also I assume battery is still good, power management is windows 10 only, not lenovo's utilty (I find it too fussy and inflexible).

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[zephxiii]

I went into device manager to see if update driver would find a new one for LAN...and it did! So i'm going to run that for a bit for now.

[thinkpadcollection]

One more thing, make sure heatsink is not choked with dust on the heatsin fins in the inside, cannot see it easily, disassemble and take heatsink out. Blow into cooling fins with compressed air to force dust off the fins, remember not to allow fan to spin and tweezer the blown off dust out of the fan, make sure fan spin freely. Clean off old heatsink compound for both processor's and heatsink where processor contacted the heatsink's spot, apply fresh thin coat of heatsink compound on the processor's silicon die.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[zephxiii]

One more thing, make sure heatsink is not choked with dust on the heatsin fins in the inside, cannot see it easily, disassemble and take heatsink out. Blow into cooling fins with compressed air to force dust off the fins, remember not to allow fan to spin and tweezer the blown off dust out of the fan, make sure fan spin freely. Clean off old heatsink compound for both processor's and heatsink where processor contacted the heatsink's spot, apply fresh thin coat of heatsink compound on the processor's silicon die.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

Excellent suggestion and critical point. Temps are good on mine as I did check. I also have a fleet of T60-T530 and T450s at work so I am familiar with temps. I have had a 1 or 2 T4xx series where I pulled heatsink out to reapply paste as their temps were too high.

I also have an interesting story of a T510 that died which i was suspect of HSF failure/CPU overheat. It landed on the shelf and I forgot about it. Then one day my T510 fan took a dump (we are in a high silicon carbide dust environment). Being lazy and too busy, i swapped the HSF unit from the dead T510 into mine. Well my T510 ended up running hot and rebooted randomly. I then remembered the situation with the dead T510 and what I think happened. I swapped the good fan from dead T510 HS into my T510's orig HS and all is good. I guess that dead T510's heatpipe must have lost all its fluid because it was NOT transferring heat from the CPU to the heat exchanger.

[zephxiii]

Since my last post where I updated the LAN driver in device manager, I have not seen a stutter since. This is not definitive as it has been a short amount of time, however I think I would have seen one by now.

[dr_st]

Hope it stays trouble free.

For future reference - what is the current version of the driver? And do you remember what was the old version?

[zephxiii]

The driver I am using now is 12.15.30.0 8/18/2015 pulled from Microsoft.

The driver version before was 12.12.140.22 2/15/2015

Lenovo Website has 12.10.28.1801 10/26/2011