Games performance suddenly down?

Hi. I have a Lenovo Z580 with a 2gb Nvidia 630m gt. 2,5 i5 processor and 8 gigs of ram.

I have played games like FarCry 3 and Sniper Elite 2 on medium without any problems..

But all of a sudden, they run badly (Very low fps).. Even on low settings. How can this be possible? I have litterally changed nothing.
Sometimes it goes away and it runs smoothly again after some hours.

1. It isn't getting hot
2. The power management is set to "High Performance/Maximum"
3. Fan is on standard or effective spread of heat
4. It is using the correct Graphics card (i think)

It has happened a few times.. a new installation of windows helped last time, but since i have a lot on my laptop - i would prefer if that wasn't the only solution.

It comes and it goes.. It is just really annoying.

 

Think again .
Dunno, some background processes, OS full of crap, could be anything.

 

Could be the new windows platform update. Try uninstalling that.

 

Often, when I say something like

it actually isn't.

My other thought would be a GPU failure, though the suggestions from the others who have posted here are probably more likely.

 

Do you track your GPU usage when that happens? Tried any new drivers?

 

Install MSI Afterburner and use the OSD feature to check for GPU utilization and clock speed while gaming. Also you say it's not getting hot, but use a temperature monitoring program to make sure it's not getting hot. What temps?

 

Ok this actually happens to me all the time. Its " 4. It is using the correct Graphics card (i think)". Go into your Nvidia properties and go to where you can change your programs to use either integrated (HD4000) or dedicated (GT 630m). There you will have to choose the game you want to play and then change it to use dedicated. Hit apply and start up the game. This should fix the problem so when ever this happens again, you will need to do this process.

 

As a quick check to add what others have said to eliminate which card is being used and if that's related to the problem, right click on the program and select "run with graphics processor" then "high performance"... you can then try and right click using "integrated graphics" and see if you have a difference.

That should at least tie it to a GPU issue or not. Definitely wouldn't hurt to run a temperature monitoring program as well and make sure temps internally are fine.

 

As it would have it, hours after i made the thread - everything went back to normal.. Suddenly, it just works..

I am sure the programs are using the correct graphics card and it isn't because it's getting hot..

I did try to make a custom energy management setting - but i really doubt that was the issue, since it was set on "High Performance" and the custom one has the exact same settings as the "high performance"..

It's probably only a matter of time before it happens again..

 

Finally found a solution..

I didn't recognize that the pc was plugged into the adapter.. .. It was charging, but the games played like it was on battery..
I just pulled the plug out and put it back in, and that did the trick.

 

Glad it was simple, hopefully the plug isn't going out. Mine games terrible on battery as well.

 

Was just about to suggest that it was on battery or thought it was on battery.

 

And i would have said, that isn't it... Because the
plug was in and the "Plugged IN-Icon was on" ..


It was actually a 6-year old who kinda fixed the problem, by accidentally pulling the cord out while i was trying to fix it.. Lol.
From 10 FPS to 40 fps.

 

Strange Anyway good to know its working now...