Any time I play a game - any game, be it Half-Life 2 or Soldat - I get these severe slowdowns after about fifteen minutes of play. I seem to go down to 2 or 3 fps. The only cure is quitting and restarting the program. I thought for a while it was a heat thing, so I replaced the fan and moved the computer to my cold-ass basement, but the slowdowns persist. Any ideas, anybody?
Which fan did you replace? It could be the CPU clocking down due to heat, or the videocard.
It was the CPU fan, but both seem to be working properly now.
Try this: Download Speedfan and run it in the background while playing your games, turning on temperature logging.
If you see any crazy spikes, perhaps you can chalk up your problems to heat. If not… er, it’s something else.
What CPU and MB have you got? Like steve said, your CPU may be throttling down to prevent overheating. You said you replaced the CPU fan; did you also try reseating your heatsink as well? Sometimes it comes loose or the thermal compound needs to be replaced; friend of mine just had to do it a few months ago. If you have any thermal compound around, try removing your CPU heatsink, clean the HS and CPU, then apply a new layer of thermal compound and reattach your heatsink. Plenty of how-tos if you need help.
Hmm… I am indeed seeing a temperature spike. I guess it is heat after all.
It’s funny, I thought about cooling and thought fans. Heatsinks just didn’t occur to me… I mean, how could those stop working? They don’t even move!
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.
Had a buddy with a similar problem on his laptop – we partially dismantled it, applied a blast of compressed air, and a wad of dust the size of his thumb shot out the back. Worked fantastic afterwards.