[SOLVED]Games randomly lagging

[Justice For All]

I've had this issue for quite some time now and just dealt with it, but recently it's gotten to a point where it just completely ruins any game I play that it happens on.

What happens is, the game will play fine for a while, then randomly start getting a horrible screen lag that makes the mouse movement and everything unbearably choppy.

I don't understand why, though. I don't have a top of the line computer, but I have one that can run the majority of games on at least medium settings. Even if I turn every setting down to the lowest, for instance on Black Ops, Black Ops II, Borderlands 2 or even a simple game like Red Alert 2, it gets the random lag, but will play fine a few minutes later.

The worst part is, I have no other programs besides 1 tab of Google Chrome open. I've even tried closing the Google Chrome tab but it still happens. My specs are as follows;

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU 3.01 GHz Processor
Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card
100 GB SSD and 100 GB HDD
8 GB of RAM

The only thing I can think of, is it's been a while since I re-installed windows, so maybe the computer is just bogged down from it and needs a fresh copy, but if so will something like disk fragmenting or cleanup fix it without having to re-install? Or is there hopefully a better and easier resolution?

 

[Monolith]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Good maintenance means never having to install a fresh Windows....

There are a few possibilities on what it could be...What Windows are you running?

You might have a rootkit thats hogging resources...so run this:

You must be registered to see links

You stated it seems to be getting progressively worse as time goes on...could be a harddrive problem thats getting worse...do a thorough defrag and that will tell you if you have bad sectors. you should run a disk check at boot too...just to be sure.

Does it seem to do it when your in an intensive part of the game? Might just be getting warm in there...crack that box and clean it up

 

[ThuGie]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Well this may sound weird,
But really do clean out your pc, the damn dust!
When the pc starts getting hot, it might start slowing down and acting funny.
Know somebody who's pc started to get really sluggish when playing games or watching well back then the so called hd video's.

After opening his pc up it was horrible! so much dust everywhere.. some of the fans couldn't even turn anymore.
When i was done with step 1.. cleaning the inside of the pc, and then placing it on a spot where it was able to vent more then where it was stored before performance was already better.
Of course removing the ton of crap from auto start up also solved quite a load lol.
The guy had like 2 virus scans 1 crappy optimizer tool.. virus scans out of date. optimizer tool just ran the first 5min of bootup @ 100% cpu.. couldn't even figure out wth it was doing..

But anyway, make sure you clean the inside of the pc, and remove un needed stuff from start up.

so do as monolith said, you never know whats running on your pc that you are not aware of, and cleaning is best of all .

I find i wrote enough for now lol.

 

[Justice For All]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Well after my computer randomly shut off out of nowhere, I found out it's just extremely hot which isn't surprising since we've had record breaking heat recently. I let it cool off a bit and I have a fan running on it constantly, with the side cover off to help vent it more and I think it's made a little bit of a difference. It had some dust in it but not enough to cause any significant performance issues, I'll still probably clean it out though just because.

 

[MAXTRAXv2]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Intel Core 2 Quad CPU 3.01 GHz Processor
Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card
100 GB SSD and 100 GB HDD
8 GB of RAM

32bit cpu with 8 gig of ram? wtf?

also check your video cards, plugged in and pushed in all the way and the screw for it, is screwed all the way on(so its grounded)
make sure all the screws for the mother board are screwed in.

if all that was 100%, then your video cards dieing.

 

[Junkers]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Well after my computer randomly shut off out of nowhere, I found out it's just extremely hot which isn't surprising since we've had record breaking heat recently. I let it cool off a bit and I have a fan running on it constantly, with the side cover off to help vent it more and I think it's made a little bit of a difference. It had some dust in it but not enough to cause any significant performance issues, I'll still probably clean it out though just because.

Never run with the side panel off, that ruins all airflow! Cases are designed to let air flow efficiently, if anything place a fan in front of the intake fan, but side on if you catch my drift. That blows away hot air and allows cooler air to be drawn in, as opposed to you just blowing hot air into the machine

 

[Justice For All]

Re: Games randomly lagging

32bit cpu with 8 gig of ram? wtf?

also check your video cards, plugged in and pushed in all the way and the screw for it, is screwed all the way on(so its grounded)
make sure all the screws for the mother board are screwed in.

if all that was 100%, then your video cards dieing.

I'm not running a 32bit OS, I'm running a 64bit OS o.o I double checked all my cards though and they were all pretty secure, my graphics card seemed like it might've been maaaaaybe slightly unplugged because it was a bit more wiggly than the others when I was (ever so gently of-course securing it in the card's slot. Also that wouldn't surprise me if it was starting to die down, it's gotta be at least 3-4 years old by now.

Never run with the side panel off, that ruins all airflow! Cases are designed to let air flow efficiently, if anything place a fan in front of the intake fan, but side on if you catch my drift. That blows away hot air and allows cooler air to be drawn in, as opposed to you just blowing hot air into the machine

Wow I didn't know that I'm glad you told me before it was too late, that does make complete sense too. I now have the side panel back on with a 2 cylinder window fan running on the back of it like you said, last night when it randomly shut off the back was so hot I almost couldn't hold my hand there for long so I think that is a big part of the issue; but it'll hopefully be fixed now.

 

[Monolith]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Don't run with side panel off is a old wise tale....if you have a fan blowing directly on it it won't hurt anything....no fan..yes side panel on for sure to have efficient airflow...I ran my computer with the side panel off for a year cause the video card fan went out..I just had a regular house fan blowing directly on the card on high when I used it..it worked fine

 

[Solaire]

Re: Games randomly lagging

32bit cpu with 8 gig of ram? wtf?

Indeed, wtf. Intel Core 2 is a 64 bit CPU.

also check your video cards, plugged in and pushed in all the way and the screw for it, is screwed all the way on(so its grounded)
make sure all the screws for the mother board are screwed in.

if all that was 100%, then your video cards dieing.

Like OP said, it's extremely hot. That has nothing to do with plugged in cards. It may lead into the death of the GPU, but other parts would die before that.

Don't run with side panel off is a old wise tale....if you have a fan blowing directly on it it won't hurt anything....no fan..yes side panel on for sure to have efficient airflow...I ran my computer with the side panel off for a year cause the video card fan went out..I just had a regular house fan blowing directly on the card on high when I used it..it worked fine

It depends on what you're going to do with the side panel off. If you put a fan directly at it, the airflow will still be ruined but you'll have lower temperature due to the fan.

 

[MAXTRAXv2]

Re: Games randomly lagging

Indeed, wtf. Intel Core 2 is a 64 bit CPU.

yer wanna tell my quad core 2 6600 @2.4 intell prossor that?.

Like OP said, it's extremely hot. That has nothing to do with plugged in cards. It may lead into the death of the GPU, but other parts would die before that.

LOL. im talking about stadic changers that could be doing this, comeback when you have some exp in computers.