Suddenly Experiencing Emulation Lag (KH2FM)

[ThatGingeKid]

Hey guys I'm new to the forum but I've been using pcsx2 for a couple years now. I recently took a break from gaming to focus on college but now that I've come back I noticed that I've been experiencing FPS drops in games that I was previously running very well (KH, KH2FM, DBZ: Budokai, etc). Cutscenes always run at 60fps but gameplay slows down somewhere between 40-50 fps which is playable . . . but annoying. The slight slow down in game play makes the games both easier and slightly frustrating to move around in. 

Things I've tried:
- Making sure I'm using my GPU as my adapter
- Probably every combination of speedhacks (games universally run best on balanced preset)
- Ensuring that my GPU is actually running (17-23% usage when pcsx2 is running, cpu runs around 8% concurrently with it)
- Switching from version 1.2.1 to 1.4.0 of pcsx2
- Ensuring that my NVIDIA drivers are up to date

Screenshots of my specs (5 year old laptop but things were running fine only half a year ago?):
   
   

All pcsx2 settings are default except the preset has been set from 2(safest) to 3(balanced) and instead of running the Direct3D11 renderer I'm using Direct3D9. Direct3D11 causes my video to suddenly freeze but the game still runs (audio works, you can hear the characters moving, attacking, etc).

[vsub]

For nvidia better use opengl and what is your cpu
Maybe the cpu is overheating,what power plan are you using

[ThatGingeKid]

For nvidia better use opengl and what is your cpu
Maybe the cpu is overheating,what power plan are you using

The equipment my laptop *told* me it came with was an i7-4700MQ but the screenshot reads i7-4600. Either way, it runs at about 50C while I'm operating pcsx2.
I'm also using the "high performance" mode on my laptop. 

Another piece of information, my battery is totally bunked and my laptop only runs when it's plugged in. I wouldn't think that would cause any other hardware issues but it might be something to consider?

EDIT: While playing I notice I get peak performance when my cpu is running at 50-60% load, and when I'm getting poor performance my cpu is running at around 30% load. I tried downloading a program that would allow me to unpark all my cores and run at 100% efficiency but for whatever reason my cpu still only runs at a speed of 0.79GHz, even though my max (not turbo) should run at 2.40GHz.