USER.CFG WILL NOT LOAD and Momentary Regular Game STUTTER

I am trying commands in trying to smooth out my performance of BF4. I have a momentary (quarter second) stutter every three seconds during the game... really annoying, especially while flying. It doesn't happen all the time, but often. This even happens in multi-player games where I am the only player... that's how I am testing.

Anyway.... I created the user.cfg file and put it in the correct folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Battlefield 4 

Unfortunately, it will NOT LOAD! 

I tried just one command: perfoverlay.drawfps 1 but the FPS does not show on the screen upon opening the game. If I type the command in manually in the console, it does work, so I know the game recognizes the command. I also downloaded a "premade" .cfg file and it won't load either. I can tell because the FPS isn't displaying on the screen. 

YES... the file extensions are on and it is DEFINITELY named correctly... not .txt file.  I also repaired the game installation with no success.  The USER.CFG file will still not load!  It's absolutely nuts.  WHAT THE HECK?? HELP!  I certainly can not type in 25 commands every time I play a game... I have to get this to work.

SPECS: 

* Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz overclocked to about 3.0GHz - CPU Parking disabled already... all cores running 
* 8 GB RAM (Komputerbay 4GB 2X 2GB DDR2 800MHz PC2-6300 PC2-6400 DDR2 800 (240 PIN) DIMM Desktop ) 
* Sapphire 7970 3GB Crossfire graphics card... brand new rated 2nd in performance on BF4 based on a review 
* Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - brand new install for game all stripped down... no other software installed on machine and all non-essentials disabled in startup.cfg 
* Do have SETFSP.EXE and HMONITOR and CPUID CPU=Z installled and BF3 installed 
* Network connection is DSL and it's fair... my pings are 60's usually.... don't play games over 90. I do get occasional ping spikes up to 400 but then it comes back down right away. 
* I am going through a WRT600N Linksys router with all the proper ports forwarded and Qos ON set high priority for my MAC Address 

Regarding the STUTTER, I have disabled CPU PARKING, tried limiting the FPS to 60, have network smoothing at about 10%. It is weird. It happens driving, running or flying. The whole copter wobbles momentarily every three seconds.. like a pulsation... very rhythmic. Sometimes the game works fine... smooth as glass. Then at other times I get the stutter. I have gone into servers where I am the only person playing while getting this stutter to test things and it's still happening. 

I don't know... it's really frustrating. My hardware should be adequate. I know my CPU is a few years old, but overclocked it meets the recommended specs for the game and the graphics card is just one level shy of the best card I can get. I stayed away from Nvidia and stuck with AMD becasue the game was designed around that chip. I am maxed out on memory for my motherboard. BF3 runs just fine with all this hardware, though I constandly get "connection to server times out" errors.  That's why I bought BF4... so I could actually play through a complete multi-player game and not commit suicide from frustration.

Now I did not adjust memory speed to try and match it for the overclocking I have done... albeit minor. I haven't figured that out yet, but from what I have read this is an issue of having them "matched" properly.

UPDATE:  I have pulled up my CPU Resource Moniotor and my CPU is firmly in the 35% to 75% range while I am in a multiplayer game by myself running around on foot.  All the cores are running and none are maxed out.  So... I am NOT maxxed out on my CPU.

UPDATE: I checked my memory usage and went from 25% to 51% usage during running the game.  I have 8GB total and about 4GB is used total after the thing settles out.  There appears to be no "momory eakage" though it looks like it creeps up for the longest time, but, eventually it slows down and peaks out.  So... I am NOT maxxed out on memory.