Frame lag? or Monitor refresh issue?

[PopeAK49]

I'm in a little bit of a pickle. I never had this issue before, but now it is happening. About 90% of the time, I can run my games on max with smooth frame. However, during certain moments in a game, I have a delay with my movement. It doesn't seem like a fps issue because it happens for a brief moment, but it is choppy. I tried to use Vsync because I keep thinking that my frame rate may be going higher that the refresh rate. However, that seems to only work a little bit. I also notice that this happens when I model in 3ds max. It would do the same thing as I mentioned above. Specs:

Nvidia GTX 580

12GB Ram

5400 WD HDD. (I doubt this could be the issue because this is after the application has loaded). But the HDD is about 3.5 years old. They could be degrading. I also understand 5400rpm is slow as shit compared today. So please dont lecture me about that. :)

Intel Core i7 Quad Core processor 3.2 Ghz

My system is stacked to handle a lot of games at max settings with good frames. I just don't know why I'm having this issue. I have a feeling that I might need to upgrade the HDD because it is old.

Thanks guys!

[InnerGoat]

It's possible your slow hdd is fragmented to hell. When was the last time you ran a defrag? That'll usually give you a noticeable pause in whatever you're working with so I'd give that a try first.

Always the possibility of a failing PSU as well.

[PopeAK49]

I did reformat my computer about 1 month ago, but i'll run a defrag just in case. The weird thing is that I didn't have this issue before I reformatted.

[PopeAK49]

I'm going to try and re-apply some thermal compound to the CPU tomorrow. Apparently, my CPU fan is running at 4000 rpm! That is terrible! I'll see if that works tomorrow.

[PopeAK49]

Turns out it was a cpu cooling issue. One of the four sides of the cpu fan was loose. I re-applied thermal compound and tightly secured the cpu fan onto the cpu. Now I don't suffer from those terrible frame drops. I tested it by running Battlefield 4 on ultra settings, and it runs smooth as hell.

[Dwood]

noice!