Cleaning out a machine could have caused a slightly less
restrictive air flow. Computers must be designed to work even
in a 100 degree F room. IOW a hot spot or semiconductor
weakness may exist; a weakness aggravated by heat. That is
why heat is such a good diagnostic tool. Yes, you may have
cured the symptom. But use that information to find the
problem - that may be intermittent today and may become a more
serious problem in the near future.

IOW use what was learned today may eventually identify and
overt a future system crash. ICs that can suffer from a
hotspot (ie weak IC or a ribbon cable located so as to
restrict a so gentle airflow) include processor on the video
controller. At your leisure, try running a very video
intensive program as ICs are heated by a hairdryer on high.
This should be perfectly normal temperature to every computer
IC. But a weak and slowly getting worse IC may recreate your
slow down.

Also noted is ribbon cable placement. Much heat is removed
from an IC by an airflow so gentle as to not even be felt by a
human hand. Massively increasing airflow actually creates
only a diminishing but increasing improvement in cooling. If
that most gentle airflow is obstructed by a ribbon cable, then
a processor IC (ie on video controller) may become too hot.
Most ICs are cooled by that most gentle airflow that a
misplaced ribbon cable could obstruct.

Best to know why a problem is corrected so that it does not
slowly get worse and happen again later. Also to learn from
the failure. Apparently no rush. But heat is a powerful tool
to locate defective semiconductors. Maybe wait for next
summer and run the system in a 100 degree room - to confirm
the system really is stable.

Eventually you should want to know why you fixed it - or
carefully watch for a future reoccurrence.

AcidX wrote:
> ...
> It is mainly games and graphic intense programs and those with a lot of
> virtual memory usage, which first lead me to believe it was a problem
> with my RAM. However, I have bought new RAM and still suffer the issue
> (UNLESS, my RAM is configured incorrectly. If so, how would I correct
> that?). I then thought it was my graphics card. However... If that's
> the case, surely the lag would be immediate?
> So now I'm stumped and asking others
> ...