Please help! My PC is sometimes super laggy (like 5-10 fps) until I turn it off for 2 minutes and turn it back on.

Title: Troubleshooting Intermittent PC Lag: A Guide to Diagnosing and Resolving Performance Issues

Are you experiencing sudden, severe lag on your Windows PC—such that your system drops to 5-10 frames per second and becomes nearly unresponsive? If this scenario sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Many users encounter sporadic performance hiccups that can be challenging to diagnose, especially when they only occur immediately after startup and resolve temporarily after a reboot.

In this article, we’ll explore common causes of such issues and provide a structured approach to troubleshooting and resolving these performance problems.

Understanding the Issue

Users experiencing these symptoms report that their PCs function normally after a simple restart, with the lag disappearing for a while. However, upon subsequent startups, the system becomes sluggish again, indicating a potentially hardware-related or software configuration issue that manifests only during initial boot or after specific events.

Recent relevant occurrences—including a game freeze during Battlefield 6 Beta and subsequent automatic system reboot—may be linked to underlying hardware or driver issues. These symptoms, alongside event logs and minidump files, can provide valuable clues in diagnosing the root cause.

Key Clues and Observations

Lag begins immediately after boot-up, not gradually during usage.
A temporary fix involves shutting down and waiting 1-2 minutes before restarting.
No anomalies are evident in Event Viewer logs during normal operation, but certain entries appear after problematic events:
“Unable to load Pluton-Windows firmware. StatusCode: STATUS_SUCCESS, Reason: Failed to apply firmware.”
“IOMMU fault reporting has been initialized.”
A minidump file generated after an unexpected reboot may contain critical diagnostic information.
System specifications include an NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super, Ryzen 7 5700X3D CPU, 32GB RAM, 2TB NVMe SSD, and an ASUS PRIME B450M-K II motherboard.

Potential Causes and Troubleshooting Strategies

Firmware and BIOS Issues

The error related to “Pluton-Windows firmware” suggests potential firmware or BIOS compatibility problems. Ensuring your motherboard’s BIOS is up to date can resolve firmware-related anomalies.

Action Steps:
– Visit the motherboard manufacturer’s website and update your BIOS to the latest version.
– Check for any firmware updates for peripherals or hardware components.