Computer lagging badly on specific programs and websites

[BabyCharmander]

Hello! I seem to be having a major computer problem, and someone suggested I ask here for help.

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron N5110 and I have Windows 7 Home Premium.

A couple weeks ago, I was playing a computer game (in a rather intense boss fight) when the W key on my keyboard stopped working (causing me to lose, of course). Everything else on the keyboard was fine--I just couldn't use the W key. I tried popping the keyboard out, unplugging the ribbon, and plugging it back in (on some occasions the ribbon would come loose, so I'd have to re-plug it in), but it didn't work--the W key was definitely broken (and now that I think of it, some of the number pad keys were broken, but I never use the number pad on this computer so I didn't worry about it). So I ordered a new keyboard (this one, specifically--the same keyboard my laptop came with, to my knowledge), and in the mean time, plugged in a USB keyboard to use until the new one came in.

When I got my new keyboard, I popped out the old one and popped the new one back in, and opened up Notepad to test out the typing. Sure enough, all the keys worked! Excellent!

And... then I went on to Tumblr to type up a post, and noticed that, wow, Tumblr seemed a LOT laggier than normal. I wasn't too worried though--I mean, it's happened before, and usually the website's fine in a few days. But it was lagging REALLY badly, to the point where it was a pain to scroll through the site, and a MASSIVE pain to even post (the text took--and still takes--20-30 seconds to appear when I type).

Then I noticed text was also lagging on other websites, like Twitter, albeit not as badly as Tumblr. Here, though, I'm typing just fine with no lag at all.

I was a bit concerned about my keyboard, but figured I'd give it a few days to see if maybe just some social media websites were acting odd (though I did notice that they seemed to work fine at work or on my phone).

But then I tried doing an art stream through Picarto. I use Photoshop to draw and Open Broadcast Software to stream, and have done many many art streams before. As you probably guessed, it did not go well. Photoshop itself lagged badly--and I mean, I've had it happen before where the tablet input lags, meaning I draw a stroke, and it takes a second for the stroke to appear, and that's always a problem with the tablet. That happened here, too, but the program itself was lagging as well--if I used a shortcut to select a tool, it might take as much as 10 seconds or more for that tool to come up. Or if I tried moving separate Photoshop windows around, it would lag BADLY. I could not draw on the program at all.

Then, just now, I wanted to try playing a compute game, so I booted up Siralim 2 (not exactly a high-performance game--it's a bit like a Gameboy Advance or SNES game, sprite art style and all). At first the game ran smoothly, but when I got into a battle (standard turn-based RPG battle with short little animations for the attacks), the game began lagging so badly that I could not play. I have NEVER experienced lag on that game before.

I honestly don't know what's going on. My old keyboard would cause odd problems with my computer if the ribbon ever came loose (for example, it would cause my keyboard to not work in conjunction with my mouse or tablet, meaning I couldn't draw or play video games), but that was simply solved by unplugging the ribbon and plugging the ribbon back in again. It never caused my computer to LAG like this. Even so, I tried unplugging my new keyboard and plugging it back in again, but I'm still getting the same lag.

And again, it's not even lag across the entire computer--just specific programs and websites. I'm wondering if it's not the keyboard, and just happened to happen the day I installed the new keyboard, but I don't know.

I hope that's enough information for anyone here to work off of... but if it's not, let me know, and I'll see if I can provide more info. If anyone can help me, that would be AMAZING. Thank you so much!

UPDATE: I tried switching the keyboard with my old one, and it turns out the lag problem still persists even with that keyboard. So I guess the problem isn't tied to my new keyboard--it just happened to come up the day I got my keyboard.

In any case, it's still a pretty major lag problem that's preventing me from using Tumblr (well), drawing, and playing any computer games. Can anyone help, please?

UPDATE 2: I noticed that AVG had installed something the day the lagging started. I had been meaning to get rid of AVG and get a better antivirus program anyway, so I uninstalled it (currently installing Webroot now), but that still hasn't taken care of the lag. I don't know what to do. Can anyone PLEASE help?

UPDATE 3: Tried a system restore to a point four days before I started having problems. My computer is still lagging. Can anyone PLEASE help me?

UPDATE 4: Turns out AVG is a lot harder to remove than I thought, but I think I've purged it from the computer. Even so, the lag is gradually getting worse. Even typing on here the lag is bad, and now not only does typing lag, it becomes garbled as I type unless I'm typing about half my normal typing speed or slower. Here's what happens when I try to type normally (I'll type up a few lines from Horton Hatches the Egg as an example): Sighed Maizya lazy brid ahtching aneg g, I'vm tired and i'm broed andi Ve' kinds in mykleg from sitting, just istting here, dayaf ter ayd, it'sw orkh ow I Hate it, i'd much ratehr play. i'd takeap vacation lfy off fora rest, ifi COu ld findsom eneo to stayo n my nest. ifI COlud fidnsom eneo, i'df ly away, free, thne HORotonthe elephant passed by hertre e.

Yeah, that's kind of a mess.

I'm starting to wonder if my laptop is not salvageable and if I should just get a new one. Can anyone please advise?

 

[hang-the-9]

You can try a full clean Windows setup, on a new hard drive if you can get one. It may also be a heat issue, did you ever check temps on the system? HWMonitor can do that, run it, run a stress test like Prime95 or a game benchmark, and compare the temps to the CPU you have to see if the max it hits is well bellow the max of the CPU.