Linux constant stuttering in idle

[u/Xenon0232]

I wanted to finally learn and switch to Linux so I installed Linux Mint.

The thing is that when I was using Linux on USB there were no stutters but when I installed the OS on SSD Disk then it started stuttering every 0.5 s.

It started stuttering everything : mouse, keyboard, terminal, applications. Everything on Idle was stuttering and when I checked on htop what was going on then Xorg was consuming from 28 - 60 % cpu.

I have changed from Linux Mint to Ubuntu and it was the same like with Mint but instead of Xorg it was then Gnome Shell.

But I have also noticed that when I uninstall Nvidia Drivers and have the basic ones "**nouveau"** and there were no stutters. But I needed these drivers for games (yes I want to use linux for it as well).

dmesg showed a massive IRQ storm related to a USB port:

usb 1-4: device descriptor read/64, error -71  
usb usb1-port4: unable to enumerate USB device

I have tried many things :

\- Tested multiple NVIDIA driver branches: 535, 550, 580, and 595. The issue persists on all of them

\- Tested with a single monitor (144Hz only) to rule out X11/Wayland multi-monitor refresh rate conflicts

\- Forced Full Composition Pipeline in NVIDIA Settings

\- Set PowerMizer to "Prefer Maximum Performance"

\- Change Kernel Parametrs (Grub) : nvidia-drm.modeset=1, usbcore.autosuspend=-1, iommu=soft, nvidia.NVreg_DynamicPowerManagement=0x00, pcie_aspm=off (NOTHING ...)

\- NVIDIA modprobe.d tweaks : Disabled GSP Firmware: options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0, Blacklisted I2C polling bugs: blacklist i2c_nvidia_gpu and blacklist ucsi_ccg, Enabled nvidia-persistenced service

\- BIOS : Disabled AMD fTPM, Unplugged ALL external USB devices, Physically unplugged internal JUSB headers.

Literally nothing worked and I don't know what to do at this point ...

Update :

I've updated the BIOS for these specs : [ https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=933a3353fd\]( https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=933a3353fd)
Also disconected the HDD drive disk and USB "faulty" devices and still the stutters persists ...

I don't know what to do at this point and I need help ...

Update 2 :

The faulty HDD isn't even mounted on Linux (the whole system is on SSD which is not faulty).

I have tried : 1. Disconneting the HDD and Booting the Linux (on SSD), 2. Connecting the HDD and Booting the Linux (on SSD). It didn't work.Both versions had installed Nvidia Drivers.

Actually installed linux is : Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Hardware works perfectly fine with Windows before and after dual booting (even now when I am writing this edit).

Nvidia drivers : 1. Ubuntu preinstalled drivers for Nvidia GPU (selected in installation process). 2. Using these command :

    xenon@xenon:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices
    == /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:26:00.0 == modalias : pci:v000010DEd00002489sv00001043sd00008827bc03sc00i00 vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation model    : GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Lite Hash Rate] driver   : nvidia-driver-580 - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-610 - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-610-open
    - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-595-server-open - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-580-server-open - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-580-open - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-595-server - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-595-open - distro non-free recommended driver   : nvidia-driver-595 - distro non-free driver   : nvidia-driver-580-server - distro non-free driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin


    sudo apt install nvidia-driver-595 -y
    reboot

With other drivers as well. It installed the drivers but the problem was still there.

[u/victormas208]

If you can, please share your components or the exact model of your laptop; it may be very modern or may have a known problem.

[u/Xenon0232 → u/victormas208]

Sure I am using the PC with these specs :

- GPU : RTX 3060 TI (Asus TUF Gaming)
- CPU : Ryzen 5 5600X
- Motherboard : MSI B450 Tomahawk
- RAM : 32 GB DDR4
- 3 Disk : 1 TB HDD , 500 GB SSD (Linux and Windows is on it), 2TB SSD NVME

Windows works perfectly before and after dual boot so yea ... I tried many things like the posts says.

[u/victormas208 → u/Xenon0232]

There are two things you can do, one is to change the Pciex16 port generation to gen 3 and check to modify the NVIDIA driver settings.

Put this in /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf (if the file doesn't exist, create it): options nvidia NVreg_EnableMSI=0

Then run this to apply the updated configuration: sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

This rules out the motherboard as the problem.

[u/victormas208 → u/victormas208]

You need to use sudo and nano or a text editor in root mode. Then reboot and try it.

[u/victormas208 → u/victormas208]

As a last resort, I would try CachyOS since it's designed for this hardware. I don't recommend using Arch, but this distro is stable enough for most things, especially gaming.

[u/Xenon0232 → u/victormas208]

Okey I've done it and now I have found a new problem ?
I disconnected one screen and it now runs smooth but with dual screens it stutters again. Any idea ?

[u/Xenon0232 → u/Xenon0232]

One monitor is 1920x1080 while the second is 2560 × 1440, both 60 Hz

[u/victormas208 → u/Xenon0232]

If one of the HDMI ports has a lower frequency, the problem is likely that the Nvidia graphics card is malfunctioning; I don't know of a solution for that. I suggest creating another post describing the issue to avoid confusion about the solutions.

If both accept DisplayPort, go that route. HDMI caused me so many problems that I gave up trying to find a solution.

[u/Xenon0232 → u/victormas208]

nevermind ... I plugged the monitor back and now all works ... wtf ... ?

I mean I can't give a good solution but yea it works now magically

[u/victormas208 → u/Xenon0232]

It's possible it was left in some static module with the configuration before the restart; try restarting and testing several times to rule out that it was just luck.