Question Peculiar PC Lag Issue

[SageWindu]

Hello everyone. I hope you all are doing well in these uncertain times. Anyway, I've been having a very bizarre problem regarding my PC lagging and try as I might I can't seem to figure out what's wrong nor how to fix it. So I come to you all for help.

Here's the situation: at completely random times, my PC will lag - a video on YouTube will freeze (but the audio continues, oddly); music will keep playing with the odd buzz here and there; the mouse cursor will freeze, then unfreeze, then freeze again, the works.

Now here's what makes everything so baffling: this does not happen while gaming. The issues may crop up before or after I play a game, but never during. Any lag that happens inside of a game is almost always due to the game itself (the one exception being Phantasy Star Online 2, but I've been having these issues for months, and PSO2 literally just released on PC, so...).

Here's a bullet list of the issues that occur when the lag starts:

• mouse cursor freezes at random
• switching between windows sometimes takes full minutes
• opening Task Manager lags heavily, taking minutes to load and also not displaying all information (so any programs or processes causing the problems are completely unknown)
• the RGB settings on my keyboard and CPU cooler (see component list below) lag in sync with the mouse cursor (if the mouse cursor stops responding, so do the keyboard/cooler animations)
• if I'm lucky, my display will go black, the fans on my GPU will start up (they only run when needed), and then everything reverts to normal
• I actually managed to capture a video (albeit via cellphone) that shows all the previous points except window-switching

All of my solutions so far have resulted in little to no progress - I've run a million virus scans; I uninstalled a million possibly problematic programs (e.g. Dragon Center, iCue, GeForce Experience); I replaced my keyboard with an old membrane that I bought a few years ago; I've run memory tests; I've run stress tests and benchmarks on the GPU; I've done drive scans for errors on all my drives; I even did a clean install of Windows10. All that's happened is that the issues are less frequent and at this point I'm nearly at my wits end trying to figure out how to fix all this.

Here's a list of the internal components if it helps anything. A quick note about the RAM and SSDs: I couldn't find a 4pack of the RAM featured and one SSD is my C drive while the other is my "game" drive. Thank you for your time.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X 3.9 GHz 8-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i PRO 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
• Motherboard: ASRock X570 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (x2)
• Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (x2)
• Storage: Seagate Exos X14 12 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
• Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card
• Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME Titanium 750 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
• Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 PWM PST(5-pack) 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fans
• Keyboard: Corsair K70 LUX RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard
• Custom: CableMod Classic ModFlex RT-Series Cable Kit
• Custom: Pictek Customizable Rgb Backlit Gaming Mouse Wired
• Custom: MAINGEAR Vybe RGB Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Computer Case

Also, apologies if this is in the wrong section. Thank you.

 

[SageWindu]

It's been a full week and nothing? Is my issue really that obscure that no one was able to provide any information on it? Did I describe something wrong? Not enough details? Wrong section? 🙁

Well, I haven't had any (major) issues since the original post, but I'm no closer to figuring out why it was happening in the first place. Any potential help is more than welcome. Stay safe in the interim, everyone.

 

[SageWindu]

2 weeks and nothing, huh? Well, I suppose it's just as well - whatever was happening seemed to have fixed itself as I haven't had any problems between the last post and this one. Here's hoping said issues remain solved as I'd rather not build a new rig right after making this one.

Stay safe, everyone.

 

[Muzz_Fuzz]

Any chance that you had a spark from the PSU?

Recently my PSU sparked and I thought it was dead but the PC works fine now. But sometimes it just lags, really bad, but I've stress tested it with prime 95 and furmark. So know RAM CPU and GPU are okay. But I don't know of any way to stress test the PSU. It's definately not an over heating issue as I have water cooling and nothing gets above 60°c.

I am currently running chkdsk. But I feel that if it friends an issue, the PSU has done it.

PS I have Seasonic Focus GX-550.

 

[SageWindu]

Any chance that you had a spark from the PSU?

Recently my PSU sparked and I thought it was dead but the PC works fine now. But sometimes it just lags, really bad, but I've stress tested it with prime 95 and furmark. So know RAM CPU and GPU are okay. But I don't know of any way to stress test the PSU. It's definately not an over heating issue as I have water cooling and nothing gets above 60°c.

I am currently running chkdsk. But I feel that if it friends an issue, the PSU has done it.

PS I have Seasonic Focus GX-550.

Wow, I actually forgot I posted this.

Anyway, from what I could tell, it wasn't the PSU but instead either the CPU or the cooler that I was using at time. I've since cut my losses and upgraded to a 3900X and stuck with the stock Wraith Prism cooler and have yet to have any of the previous issues. Make of that what you will.

I appreciate the help nonetheless. Stay safe.