Azurite Mine FPS improvement that has me stumped

As someone who considers themselves knowledgeable of computers, this one has me confused.

Normally when I run POE I can get a good 60fps idle and around 40-50 in combat using potato settings. The exception to this has always been the Azurite Mines.. Something about them always causes my frames to drop dramatically to 20fps idle and 10 if any combat is going on but ONLY while in the mines. If I leave and go back to any map or my hideout my fps jumps right back up to 60+.

I had learned to live with this until one day about 2 weeks ago I log on and go into the mines and notice right away that my character doesn't feel like shes moving through quicksand anymore. I check my FPS and am amazed that I am getting smooth 45+ fps in the mines. I assumed that there must have been some performance patch overnight and went on with my day.. until I needed to restart my computer. After that my FPS were right back down to 10-20 but only while in the mines.

I figured this must have been a problem on my end so I completely removed any trace of my video drivers and reinstalled them which did nothing to fix it. I bit the bullet and did a complete reformat downloading everything new, even the client, in case of any file corruption. Sadly, this did nothing to fix the problem either. It still was a horrible quicksand type slideshow in the mines.

After spending all day trying different things to get it running smoothly again I gave up and accepted it was a fluke.. Until it happened again 4 days later and then again a few days after that. I eventually managed to somewhat narrow down whats causing the game to randomly run so much smoother and the conclusion I have come to baffles me.

For some bizarre reason, watching around 20-30 minutes of youtube videos, any videos, after starting up my PC but BEFORE launching POE will increase my Azurite Mine FPS dramatically and take it from the slog of 15fps to a smooth consistent 45+. It only happens if I watch the videos before launching POE for the first time after restarting my PC. If I restart, launch POE THEN watch the videos it does absolutely nothing. However if I restart, watch 20-30 minutes of random youtube videos THEN launch POE, my fps issue in the mines is gone. I have tested this 4 times now today and it has worked every time.

Edit - I should also note that while the videos I watch to get this to work are random, they have all been 1080p. I have yet to test SD 480p or 720p videos.

My system is a
AMD X6 1100T 3.3ghz
8gb ddr1600
6950 2gb
850 pro ssd
nothing overclocked at all

I can live with this bandaid fix as I am more curious WHY this works. Just thought I'd throw this up to see if anyone has any idea or if someone with similar issues can verify this works for them.