Question Help with Cause of PC Lag?

[Spitshine]

Hi All - new member here, trying to determine the cause of my PC's intermittent lagginess. I'm no expert, but I've got a reasonable understanding of components, always put together my own PC's. Married with children, so not a lot of disposable income to spend on a new unit, and want to try and pinpoint my problem before wasting money replacing more parts. I've had this thing for a few years, and it's always worked fine performance-wise for an old PC (specs below). Recently while playing TF2, I started noticing what seemed like mouse lag, some choppiness here and there. Since the time this started, I've tried a number of steps as outline below, but it's just gotten worse. Yesterday when I tried to run TF2, along with the general mouse-lag, it minimized the game and jumped to the desktop when action got a little intense on-screen. Anybody else experience anything like this or have suggestions on things to try?

SPECS:
cpu: AMD FX-6300
m/b: MSI 970A-G43 Plus
gpu: GeForce GT 1030 2gb (was Radeon R7 240 2gb)
ram: 1x8gb DDR3 1600 (Patriot)
o/s: Win10 (was Win7)
psu: 500W Corsair
h/d 1: PNY 120gb SSD SATA
h/d 2: WD 750gb SATA

Steps Taken:
1 - replaced mouse (and updated mouse driver)
2 - ran virus scans on all drives
3 - cleaned case, re-applied cpu compound (dropped temps from ~74C at peak usage to ~60C)
4 - replaced graphics card
5 - upgraded O/S from Win7 to Win10 - started with keeping files and settings, updated again erasing all when that didn't change anything)
6 - checked/upgraded drivers for motherboard, mouse, video card after clean windows install
6 - moved ram stick to another slot
7 - moved mouse from a direct connection on the back of the m/b to a wired connection on the front panel of the PC - this seemed to help briefly, but issue persisted

 

[Spitshine]

Correction and additional info: psu is Gamemax vp-500-rgb. It actually started rattling slightly a couple of months ago, when it cycles on and off in eco-mode. Could a failing psu drop voltage enough to cause the choppiness or jump to the desktop?

 

[Gerald6049]

Correction and additional info: psu is Gamemax vp-500-rgb. It actually started rattling slightly a couple of months ago, when it cycles on and off in eco-mode. Could a failing psu drop voltage enough to cause the choppiness or jump to the desktop?

That's not recommended brand PSU. And yeah instability power can caused the issue.

 

[Spitshine]

That's not recommended brand PSU. And yeah instability power can caused the issue.

Are there any known programs which can test the psu and check for wonky voltage?

 

[Gerald6049]

Are there any known programs which can test the psu and check for wonky voltage?

There is no software can give a precisely voltage detection based I know.

Refer to PSU review will be help to indicate the quality PSU. And in this case, gamemax is not recommended brand PSU when it comes to quality.

 

[Spitshine]

Was able to try a friend's extra Antek 650W power supply the other day, but it didn't change anything, still getting the lag. Had tried running Prime95 (no issues) and UserBenchMark a couple of weeks back with no issues. Tried running UserBenchMark again and everything was fine until the c: drive 4kwrite test, then I got a blue screen of death and a reboot. Tried a few more times with same result. Other than the lag when playing games, everything else seems to be running fine. My daughter plays Roblox games on here with only an occasional hiccup. May just need to start saving and get a little more modern complete new system. I don't want to keep throwing money at this thing.