Getting periodic lag when playing BF3 on my R2

Ran through the single player campaign without much trouble, but after playing the multiplayer for a while my game will occasionally slow to a crawl, running under 20 FPS for a good minute or so before coming back up to speed again. Other times the game will freeze for 10 seconds or so before coming back.

I'm running the 301.42 drivers, all of the video settings are on low, and the game is properly white-listed. Any ideas where to start here?

 

Does it only happen with Battlefield? Because if it's happening with every game, try to update the VC driver. Check if there's a new BIOS version for your computer. Find updates this way. Also it's a good practice to monitor the temps periodically. That also may cause that undesired lagging.

 

HTML:

monitor the temps before doing anything - if you just log it in the background, look for a consistent throttling (mine was always at 72C). If you see a pattern u know its overheating.

 

This happened to me on my desktop with an Phenom x4 and a 6850. while playing multiplayer press the ~ button (to bring up console commands) and type render.perfoverlayenable 1 then enter. Then render.perfoverlayvisible 1 for you to see it. leave it open and when it lags you are seeing massive spikes in the chart then we had the same problem. I saw people saying that upgrading to 8gb of ram was fixing it for them. For what its worth I tried it (cuz ram is dirt cheap) and i havnt had the problem since.

 

(Really late reply, sorry!)

This kind of lag has only occurred with BF3, other games have been much more consistent in their performance, and my drivers are all up to date. My temps hover between 70-80, getting as high as 80 but usually hovering in the mid 70s. My performance overlay is showing silly amounts of lag spikes (I hit the top of the screen! =D). I may try upgrading my ram to 8gb in a while.

EDIT: Hypothetically, if I did upgrade RAM, would this be suitable? I have no idea what I'm doing really, although I know that it will be throttled down to 800mhz as is the case with the R1/R2.

Newegg.com - Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Laptop Memory Model CT2KIT51264BF1339

 

Try to dust off your vents to improve the airflow, temperature is a key factor in this case.

Alienware Laptops: How to avoid overheating

 

^ I dust my fans off regularly with a Q-tip and compressed air. I tried reapplying thermal compound, but I couldn't get to the motherboard due to stripped screws. I'm also playing on a cooling pad to help out. I'm not sure what else to do in this case.