Games randomly started running poorly? ASUS G74SX

I put probably 6 hours into Saints Row 3 so far, ran flawlessly on the settings that I had. Randomly maybe 1.5 hours ago, it started lagging really bad. It becomes really choppy when I do just about anything. I tried lowering the settings, but that doesn't fix anything at all, its the same thing regardless of how low I make the settings. It doesn't make sense to me because it worked just fine to this point.

I restarted, closed any possible programs that may cause it to lag (which there weren't any, Steam if anything). Does anyone know what could cause this?

 

Sounds like your laptop is overheating - try cleaning out your fans.

 

I blew some compressed air in the slots in the back, didn't really seem dusty. Is there any other way to reach them on my particular model?

I will also run MSI Afterburner the next time I play and I'll monitor the temperature. Shouldn't be overheating though, its not a terribly demanding game, I don't even run it on max, and its always on a cooling pad.

 

something else that could be running in the background like an anti virus scanning files?

 

Temperatures are normal, and nothing else running. The only thing that is using significant resources is Steam, which is only at 40k. Steam has always been up anyway.

 

Your system probably throttle-down the CPU due to the temps and load. You can use Throttlestop to disable BD-PROCHOT which will prevent this from happening. Common occurance with gaming on new Sandybridge laptops.

Case: 1587063

 

I've had problems with my G-72 as well. At random times my framerate will drop to 2-4. Have to restart the computer to reset whatever is causing it. It happens even with nothing running in the background.