System is lagging while multi-tasking

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Uday_24

Uday_24

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Jul 14, 2012
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Hi All,

I am now running the below rig -

CPU - Intel Core i5-2500k
CPU Cooler - CM Hyper 212 Evo
MB - Asrock Z77 Extreme 4
GPU - ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 960 2GB DirectCU II
HDD - WD Black Caviar 1TB SATA3
SSD - Samsung EVO 250GB SATA3
RAM - Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB (2X4GB) 1600MHz
Cabinet - Corsair Carbide 300R
Additional Cabinet fans - Corsair Air 140mm X 2
UPS - APC Back-UPS RS1100 VA
Monitor - SAMSUNG 20"LED

Recently, the system has started to lag even with basic tasks - i.e.- playing movies on VLC, scrolling through list of files. It takes longer than usual to modify a single .NEF image of 15MB on Capture NX-D. Games are stuttering (Phantom Pain, Infinite Warfare, Mafia III, World Poker Series..) even when kept at the basic graphics setting.

Is the setup too old to play on ? Do I need an upgrade ?
 
Solution
photonboy
1) Sudden performance changes indicate a hardware or software issue, not a general lack of raw performance capability. Playing video for one thing is not terribly demanding.

I'm inclined to believe SOFTWARE. The easiest way to confirm is to get a spare drive (60GB at least), disable the other SSD/HDD drives then install Windows cleanly and the drivers. If using Windows 10 you may only need a video driver.

Add a game with known issues as well and test things out.

2) Need an upgrade?
That's not your main issue. If you did I'd just upgrade the GPU but you need to figure out where your issue is first.

3) Defragging isn't your issue. It may help in some instances, but rarely in games or video because these get buffered into system memory...
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Uday_24

Uday_24

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Jul 14, 2012
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Hi Phillip,

Defragmentation checked...0%...still both playing movies and games are stuttering...it's lagging even if I move the mouse pointer on-screen from end-to-end, when no other application is running.

 
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photonboy

photonboy

Titan
Jun 20, 2006
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1) Sudden performance changes indicate a hardware or software issue, not a general lack of raw performance capability. Playing video for one thing is not terribly demanding.

I'm inclined to believe SOFTWARE. The easiest way to confirm is to get a spare drive (60GB at least), disable the other SSD/HDD drives then install Windows cleanly and the drivers. If using Windows 10 you may only need a video driver.

Add a game with known issues as well and test things out.

2) Need an upgrade?
That's not your main issue. If you did I'd just upgrade the GPU but you need to figure out where your issue is first.

3) Defragging isn't your issue. It may help in some instances, but rarely in games or video because these get buffered into system memory thus aren't normally prone to have stuttering due to slow drives.

Windows probably defrags by default anyway, and your OS is running from the SSD so any video or program running from that SSD has no noticeable fragmentation issue (though SSD's actually do require defragging which Windows 10 does).

It's not impossible that a failing HDD or SSD is causing problems in your system but diagnostics can probably reveal that. Unhooking the HDD's also is a good troubleshooting step.

4) *I would perhaps start by shutting down and removing or unhooking EVERYTHING not needed to run Windows.
- video card (use the iGPU)
- hard drives

Hmmm...
Yeah, it really does seem to be a software issue so I'm going to suggest the OS install option first.
 
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