My Acer Nitro V 15 started stuttering in every game, even though it ran those same games smoothly a few weeks ago. It has an RTX 4050, an Intel i7 processor, and 32 GB of RAM. I'm using Windows 11, haven't knowingly installed or changed anything recently, and my frame rate seems about the same as before. The GPU reached around 91°C while gaming, while the CPU was about 60°C. What could be causing the stuttering, and how can I fix it?
3 Answers
The temperatures are worth checking first. Around 91°C on a laptop GPU is quite warm and could cause brief thermal or power-related slowdowns, even if the average FPS looks normal. Clean the vents and fans, use the laptop on a hard surface, make sure the performance mode is enabled, and monitor clock speeds and temperatures while the stutter happens. Also try updating or clean-installing the graphics driver and checking whether the charger is connected properly.
Since you’re on Windows 11 and say nothing obvious changed, check for background activity and recent automatic updates. Open Task Manager while a game is stuttering and look for sudden CPU, disk, memory, or GPU usage. Disable unnecessary startup apps and overlays such as game launchers, recording software, and browser hardware acceleration. Testing with a clean boot can help identify a background program causing the hitching.
You may see suggestions to change boot-timing settings with bcdedit, but I wouldn’t start there. Those commands usually don’t fix game stuttering and changing system timer settings can create other problems. Check the basics first: verify the laptop is using the RTX 4050 instead of integrated graphics, use the original power adapter, update chipset and GPU drivers, and try capping the game’s FPS slightly below your usual average.
I haven’t noticed any new programs, but I’ll check Task Manager during the stutters and keep an eye on the temperatures.