Predictable, regular lag on Mint 18.1 x64

[EvilSupahFly]

I installed 18.1 fresh on my system and I'm getting a predictable, regular lag, or stutter, every ten seconds like clock-work, but it only impacts video output and mouse/keyboard input. If I'm watching something in any browser (I alternate between Firefox and Chrome) on YouTube, or playing something in VLC the audio continues smoothly uninterrupted. Happens on the regular desktop, it's been happening while I was typing this. When I look at the clock on my desktop, there's a 1-second pause every ten seconds where there are no video updates, then everything catches up - the clock skips over the "missing" second, the mouse clicks are processed, and the keyboard buffer empties on to the screen the letters I hit that didn't show up during the pause.

I've tried all of the 4.x kernels since 18.1 was released and the issue has not changed. Currently, I'm running 4.10.1-041001-generic x86_64 and 4.10.1-041001-lowlatency x86_64, and I see no difference. I've Googled the crap out of this issue and nothing I've found has made any difference.

Currently, system details are available on GIST thanks to the "upload" on the System Info applet for Low Latency (https://gist.github.com/EvilSupahFly/ae ... 8027ee579a) and Generic (https://gist.github.com/EvilSupahFly/34 ... 13975d38b8).

I even tried one suggestion which was to run GLX Gears and log the output (https://gist.github.com/EvilSupahFly/6f ... ca9c1a13a6), but I don't know what I'm looking at.

I've tweaked everything from mouse polling to vm.swappiness and everything else suggested in the assorted Google search results, but nothing has helped and I'm out of ideas, especially since this doesn't seem to happen when I run from a Live Environment, though I don't have any Live Environment logs I can post - at least, not yet.

Can somebody help? If you want more detailed info from other logs - just name your file and I'll post - I don't know off hand which other files might be required and don't want a TLDR post.

Thanks in advance!

[EvilSupahFly]

If it helps, here's the TL;DR hardware summary:

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root@black-beast:~ # inxi -SMCGx
System:    Host: black-beast Kernel: 4.10.1-041001-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 6.2.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.2.7 (Gtk 3.18.9) Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena
Machine:   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P5B v: Rev 1.xx serial: MB-1234567890
           Bios: American Megatrends v: 2104 date: 03/09/2009
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 (-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 19215
           clock speeds: max: 2394 MHz 1: 1596 MHz 2: 1596 MHz 3: 2394 MHz 4: 1596 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Turks XT [Radeon HD 6670/7670] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 256x50 Advanced Data: N/A for root