xps 1530 - counter strike source (css) fps drop every 4 minutes.

With 8600 GT video card 256mb.

I've noticed lately that my framerate will suddenly go from ~100 fps (I set max there) or so to 20fps. It will do that for almost a minute, and then suddenly for no good reason shoot back up to 100. Also, there would be times when absolutely nothing is happening in games, and it happens.

I used to think the drop was heavy firefights or traditional graphic issues like smoke or textures, but when i turned everything to the lowest, I still observed the exact same trend!

Windows Defender reports nothing and Spybot Search and Destroy reports nothing. I went through NHC to make sure HD is set on max performance and also set Battery Usage on max performance. I *thought* that would help, but the same thing started happening again after a small period (8-10 minutes) of no slow down.

Current theories are:
1. The cpu is overheating so it underclocks for a minute or so.
2. There is some process that I can't find (I might have missed something obvious) that checks in every 4-5 minutes.

Any immediate ideas? What's a good debugging tool to figure out the process if it exists?

Help please! Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

check your CPU and GPU temperature using RMClock/i8k

 

it could be your lappy is overheating and downclocking itself which would account for the drop in framerates... download rivatuner and monitor your temps and framerates in game :-

60-70C is very cool,
70-80C is lower average,
80-95C is higher average,
95-100C means it is overheating,
100C+ cooling system issue - take it to dell.

When gaming my lappy usually ranges from 73C - 95C...

Hope this helps!

fattail95

 

cpu goes from 70-75 degrees on average using rightmark, after about 20 minutes of play no fps lag at all

i also took a dust can to the comp for the first time since i got it last year nov just in case, but it looked pretty clean from outside.

thanks for the tips!