Over time this problem grew worse, the higher my settings, the more often the issue would occur, to the point that running smite on my previous maximum settings would cause this issue to occur about roughly every 5 seconds. I finally began thoroughly investigating this issue over the summer at which point I realized through making smite windowed (I usually run all my games full screen) that whenever my screen turned dark it was because my computer said I wasn't plugged into my power supply. It thought that I was running on battery power every time it happened, causing my screen to darken to minimum brightness and my games to slow to conserve energy.
Naturally I looked for a source, first testing all of my house's sockets with the game running to see if they reacted differently. My downstairs socket seemed to not cause the problem, so I deducted that living in an old house with many electronics running in my room (such as my air conditioner) on the top floor, I was draining too much power for my circuit breaker to handle so it was cutting my power every so often. I tried to play without AC for a week or so in an effort to stop the issue from happening (to no avail).
I was away most of the summer however, so I decided not to worry about the issue and getting brand new sockets in college, this wouldn't be a problem moving forward. It was. The sockets made no difference and at this point, my problem was only worsening with me having to run games on lower and lower settings, and still having this issue occur every few minutes (especially whenever the game has a lot going on so usually at the most crucial times such as teamfights. It's quite hard to fight at 5 fps).
Thus I finally contacted my computer's producer Razer, at which point they immediately recommended that I send my system in. Now, I had had hardware issues with a laptop prior to this one which had to be replaced because I sent it in and they failed to fix it (literally they sent it back saying it had been repaired, leaving me to find it sent back with the memory wiped and all the problems still there. They sent it back WORSE than it was before). So naturally I tried to avoid this at all costs, asking if there were any possible fixes.
They recommended that I try to run the game at full battery and try taking out the charger and plugging it back in when the problem occurred. These fixes actually did provide some temporary relief, but it was far from fixing the actual problem. Finally in a desperate bid to try to fix my issue, I ordered a cheap $30 3rd party charger online (I would have tried to stay on-brand but theirs is $120). I tested it out today and the problem that's plagued me for so long is gone.
I finally have lagless, ethernet, 60 fps smite for the first time in my life. I'm also furious that Razer didn't recommend trying another charger instead of sending it in for several weeks despite it being my active working computer.
TLDR: I had a computer issue for several months. I just fixed it. I'm mad at my computer's manufacturer's repair people, but I finally have lagless, ethernet, 60 fps smite for the first time in my life.
Also if you're curious about what I wrote back to these morons after this many incidents I'll put it below (note: I lied about borrowing a friend's adapter. It's generally unwise to tell repair people that you used 3rd party hardware because it can invalidate your device for future issues). Beware though, even in full rage form I'm so gentlemanly it hurts.
Gentleman RageSpoiler: That "Thanks" at the end is done in the voice of a sassy woman followed by 'mmmm hmmm!'
Your computer might have been haunted... you should have called a church instead of the repair people.
No more Internet cancer ? :3
I cured cancer.