Hardware degrading? Odd lag issues with mouse/kb and also performance issue with emulation.

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,831
37
91
I've reinstalled W10 on this machine enough times now over the past year that I'm certain it's not software related. Used to work great so curious if my PC hardware is degrading?

Specs:
CPU: Coffee lake i7-8700 (no unusual spikes in activity)
MOBO: Asrock z370M-ITX AC
RAM: 16 GB PC4-24000 DDR4 SDRAM GeIL CL15-17-17 D4-3000
No GPU
Network: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168

USB keyboard sometimes lags when I type. Wireless G305 mouse will sometimes lag as well when moving cursor around. Changing USB ports doesn't help. Using older drivers doesn't help either.
Another odd thing that I discovered is that Retroarch has very poor performance even with atari 2600 stuff. It used to run just fine and reinstalling W10 didn't help. That led me to wonder if I'm having some kind of hardware issue. I used to have this setup in a small SFF case with a GPU, so I know it ran hot quite often when gaming. I wondered if that heat eventually degraded something like my CPU or something on my MOBO or RAM? I never used to have any issues at all with this hardware. I had it dismantled for a while in storage and put it back together without a GPU so that I can use it for mostly online activity and emulation of old consoles like Atari.

Is it worth replacing a component or should I just get a new PC? It wont' support Win 11 even with intel's trusted platform on so it'll be defunct in a few more years anyway.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
9,990
126
I used to have this setup in a small SFF case with a GPU
I had it dismantled for a while in storage and put it back together without a GPU
So, can you align the performance regression with your emulators, with the timeframe that you removed the GPU? GPUs often accellerate 2D/desktop stuff as well.

Are you sure that you had the newest Intel drivers installed for the onboard video?

Lastly, are you using a different case for the re-setup rig? Are you using a USB extension cable for the wireless kb/mouse reciever? USB 3.0 ports can have a negative effect on 2.4Ghz wireless.
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
8,722
7,824
136
Do you have benchmarks to validate your perception that things have slowed down? Or are you basing this just on your perception?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
9,990
126
Are you using a 4K60 monitor over HDMI? Because the Intel integrated Graphics only does 4K30 over HDMI (HDMI 1.4b ONLY), until you move up to 11th-Gen Rocket Lake or newer. The GPU probably did 4K60, and would appear "smoother".
 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,034
748
136
I would also check your temps to make sure something isn't overheating and causing the system to clock down.
 

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
6,799
1,100
126
You should check whether the PC is wrongly identified as a laptop so the CPU is not running at full speed, go to Control Panel - Power Options and change power plan to High Performance, see if it fixed the problem.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,389
1,777
126
There are 3 kinds of keyboard/mouse lag. I've seen them lag from cables/connectors. But also from bad USB device drivers...but also from overall system resources hitting their max.

On the systems that had the most issues, the lag was caused by disk IO being high...even with SSD. I would bring up your system monitor and look to see if you have some processes hogging resources....disk IO spikes are worse, but sustained cpu and memory utilization may help point you in the right direction.

In my case, Cisco Endpoint protection screws stuff up for me when running PowerShell scripts that touch a lot of files.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
9,990
126
There are 3 kinds of keyboard/mouse lag. I've seen them lag from cables/connectors. But also from bad USB device drivers...but also from overall system resources hitting their max.
You forgot seeing 4K30 refresh on a 4K60 display, because Intel igpu only supported HDMI 1.4b before 11th-gen.
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,133
5,072
136
I've reinstalled W10 on this machine enough times now over the past year that I'm certain it's not software related. Used to work great so curious if my PC hardware is degrading?

Specs:
CPU: Coffee lake i7-8700 (no unusual spikes in activity)
MOBO: Asrock z370M-ITX AC
RAM: 16 GB PC4-24000 DDR4 SDRAM GeIL CL15-17-17 D4-3000
No GPU
Network: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168

USB keyboard sometimes lags when I type. Wireless G305 mouse will sometimes lag as well when moving cursor around. Changing USB ports doesn't help. Using older drivers doesn't help either.
Another odd thing that I discovered is that Retroarch has very poor performance even with atari 2600 stuff. It used to run just fine and reinstalling W10 didn't help. That led me to wonder if I'm having some kind of hardware issue. I used to have this setup in a small SFF case with a GPU, so I know it ran hot quite often when gaming. I wondered if that heat eventually degraded something like my CPU or something on my MOBO or RAM? I never used to have any issues at all with this hardware. I had it dismantled for a while in storage and put it back together without a GPU so that I can use it for mostly online activity and emulation of old consoles like Atari.

Is it worth replacing a component or should I just get a new PC? It wont' support Win 11 even with intel's trusted platform on so it'll be defunct in a few more years anyway.

I'm still using my i7-2700k since I built it i(n 2012?).
It's old and its seen all sorts of shenanigans.
Especially shenanigans with Logitech wireless products that exhibit the EXACT behavior you describe (proceeds to give a stern look to MXKeys keyboard - "Don't mees with me")

Been there done that with Logitech keyboard and mice.
Are you using a single unify receiver ? How old is the keyboard? What model? What happened when you turn the keyboard off and on? Does it temporarily fix the issue?
What you describe sounds to me like a simple Logitech receiver issue.

Fun with Logitech is why I always keep a usb keyboard and mouse handy.

As for the Retroarch, google shows that appears to be more of a Retroarch issue and not your pc. I recall that being flakey.