Why would my high spec laptop be performing so sluggishly?

[jerronimo3000]

I have an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro with 16GB of RAM, an i7-4720hq at 2.6Ghz, and a Geforce 960m with 4GB of vRAM running a 4k windows 8.1 environment. I am experiencing lag in the oddest places: the lock screen when I click and the picture slides up to allow me to type in my password, and when I click and drag the mouse on the desktop or in file explorer to select a large number of files. The blue highlight box lags behind my mouse when I move it. Occasionally my mouse will also lag significantly in general whether using the trackpad or a wireless optical mouse. When this happens dragging windows (like chrome and Word) around is also slightly choppy. I have set the max/min page file size to the "recommended" value, set the default graphics processor to the 960m instead of the IntelHD 4600, and have restarted windows in 1080p to no avail. I even have windows and all programs installed on a SSD. CPU usage rarely goes above even 10%, and Memory rarely above 50%. Disk usage is also usually zero unless I am copying files or something similar. I do not understand how I can run Half Life 2 and Fall Out 3 at 4k above 40fps on max settings but have the system lag when scrolling up a picture on my lock screen. It is very frustrating because I spent quite a bit of money for these kinds of specs. It seems to be able to handle very demanding tasks effortlessly but struggle with the simple ones like the 7 year old laptop it replaced. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[zer0c00l587]

Try for now changing power settings to high performance when using power cable, to see if sluggishness disappears. This should also switch off pcie link state power management which could be the main cause, at least it was for some.

 

[jerronimo3000]

Try for now changing power settings to high performance when using power cable, to see if sluggishness disappears. This should also switch off pcie link state power management which could be the main cause, at least it was for some.

Now that you mention it, I haven't experienced lag when plugged in. Computer is set to high performance. Default performance on battery is balanced, but I have tested high performance on battery as well with no improvement.

 

[zer0c00l587]

On battery even when on high performance setting it may still be throttling the cpu to below 1ghz, to save power also some report over heating issues. My old fujitsu-siemens had a similar issue, after uninstalling bloatware etc, but mainly i tinkered with a registry setting that eventually solved the heat issue. I dont remember what i did and i wouldnt recommend trying it on every laptop. I mention this because in a situation like this eventually a solution does present itself provided you checking forums etc.