Question Why does my computer get really slow after idling

[CritterFPS]

Hello,

I am having an issue with my desktop. I built this 5 years ago and will not be posting specs due to what others may think.
Can someone help me figure out what makes a computer lag after idling? If I play any demanding game such as Warzone, I just receive spikes in the frame rate. This also occurs when I’m using it in general. What are some problems that cause this?

 

[Brian Boru]

After idling for how long?

Maybe it goes to sleep. Check your power saving settings.

Perhaps some process kicks in when it's idle, eg Windows indexing or some full system scan like anti-malware.

You may have only minimal RAM, which would cause a lot of data swapping between RAM and your virtual hard drive—especially slow if the 'swap file' in on a slow HD.