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Recently I have been unable to play computer games without experiencing lag. I used to be able to play most games on medium settings and experience no lag at all on this same computer. Below are a few of the games I am having the most problems with.
Note: I play all these games in windowed mode, or fixed windowed mode.
Starcraft 2 I have always ran this on low settings, however I used to be able to talk on TeamSpeak, have Groove Shark open listening to music, and play the game without any lag at all. Now I continue to run it on low settings, but I have to have every other program closed in order to play, and I still experience lag sometimes. It will say at the top of my screen 'You are slowing down the game, you may need to lower your graphic settings or close other programs' or something along those lines. I have all the graphic settings to Low and Off.
Can You Run It - Linky
League of Legends I used to be able to run this game on Medium to High settings and have no problems at all while having Skype and Groove Shark open, it was running around 27-30 fps. Since I have started to lag I have reduced all the settings to Very Low and Off, and I still lag very much at times. I never go above 20 fps anymore and it usually hovers around 12-15, however during very large battles it can drop to as low as 2.
Can You Run It - Linky
Eden Eternal This game is only been in open beta for about two weeks so I have no prior experience with it. The game is on as low as settings as possible and I experience lag at some times. It does not always lag, but if anything other than the game is open it will lag a lot, and if I get on Channel 1 it will lag a lot (I suspect this is because of the large number of people on Channel 1 compared to the other Channels). If I alt tab out of the game, but it is still open, and try to quickly browse the internet it takes a good minute to load each web page. While the game is closed it takes about a second to load a web page.
There is no 'Can You Run It' For This Game Unfortunately.
Since I have started experiencing these lag problems I have gone to my Remove Programs and removed anything that I feel I do not need anymore and have uninstalled a lot of things. I have tried lowering the settings in all these games as much as I could but still frequently experience lag.
Computer Specs: (I have a laptop)
Motherboard: I don't know how to find the name of my motherboard, can someone help me? Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5800 @ 2.00GHz Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS RAM: 4.0 GB HardDrive: 298 GB Total / 97.8 GB Free OS: Windows Vista 64-Bit
Here are a few pictures of my specs if you need anything more. Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4
I am not sure what you may need so I am trying to include as much as possible.
Is there anything I should do to improve my situation, do I need a new computer? I want to continue gaming on my PC (especially this great game of Starcraft 2) but can not afford to upgrade at the moment, although I do plan to in the future.
If you need anything more just ask and any help you can give will be greatly apreciated.
Edit 1: When air comes out of my computer vents it is extremely hot. If I leave my hand by it for more than a few seconds it will start to burn. Does this mean I need to clear the dust from the fans and what not?
Edit 2: Some temperature tests I ran that may be helpful to you guys.
HWMonitor Test Furmark Test - I ran this for 10 minutes because I was not sure how long I should run it.
Edit 3:
This Morning I opened my laptop and cleaned out the dust from the fan and the heat grill. I was able to remove the fan so I could remove as much dust as possible, but was not able to remove the heat grill, so I just got out as much as I could with it in place. When I turned on my computer I immediately ran Furmark and here are the results.
Furmark Test After Cleaning
Much better results, as after 10 minutes it was at 70C, 18C cooler than when I started the test before I cleaned it, and 27C cooler than after 10 Minutes.
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If the performance is noticeably worse now than before, the problem is often heat, especially for laptops. (Of course, check the drivers for the 9300M GS too, and malware.) CPUs and GPUs throttle themselves down and run slower if the temperatures are really high past a certain threshold. Have you cleaned out the inside of dust recently?
Do you know what the CPU and GPU temperatures are on idle and load (being stressed in a game, or worse)? There are many free programs for checking temps or loading up the CPU or GPU. HWMonitor can tell you temperatures. Run a GPU stress test like FurMark or OCCT to stress the GPU and see what temperatures go to (both those programs report the temperatures themselves btw). Run a CPU stress test like prime95 or LinX or something else--I think OCCT has a CPU stress test as well--and see what temperatures go to.
If it's indeed problematic temperatures, you would need to open the case and clean it, particularly fans and heatsinks. It may also require reseating a heatsink, applying new thermal paste, etc., but let's get to that later if that's actually necessary.
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On July 16 2011 15:09 Myrmidon wrote:+ Show Spoiler +If the performance is noticeably worse now than before, the problem is often heat, especially for laptops. (Of course, check the drivers for the 9300M GS too, and malware.) CPUs and GPUs throttle themselves down and run slower if the temperatures are really high past a certain threshold. Have you cleaned out the inside of dust recently?
Do you know what the CPU and GPU temperatures are on idle and load (being stressed in a game, or worse)? There are many free programs for checking temps or loading up the CPU or GPU. HWMonitor can tell you temperatures. Run a GPU stress test like FurMark or OCCT to stress the GPU and see what temperatures go to (both those programs report the temperatures themselves btw). Run a CPU stress test like prime95 or LinX or something else--I think OCCT has a CPU stress test as well--and see what temperatures go to.
If it's indeed problematic temperatures, you would need to open the case and clean it, particularly fans and heatsinks. It may also require reseating a heatsink, applying new thermal paste, etc., but let's get to that later if that's actually necessary.
First of all thanks for the help!
HWMonitor Test Furmark Test - I ran this for 10 minutes because I was not sure how long I should run it. Prime 95 - I am not sure what I am supposed to do for this, how long do I run it, and how do I record the results?
Are you able to figure if it's temperature problems from this? If so what should my next step be?
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85C on the CPU was while doing what? Laptop parts tend to get hotter than desktop parts because of the size and weight constraints on cooling solutions, but 85C is uncomfortably high even as a worst-case scenario.
97C on the GPU is also uncomfortably high, but on the high side of normal operation for some chips. It looks like your core clock was still 580 MHz though, so it wasn't throttled down.
So both results are worrisome, but it's hard (for me) to say if they're the cause of the problem. It would be a good idea to clean out dust, if that's an issue, even if that's not causing your performance issues.
Among other utilities, CPU-Z and GPU-Z let you see information about those parts, such as the current clock speeds. If there was throttling due to temperatures being out of control, then you would see the clock speeds drop from what they're supposed to run at. When those parts are idling, the clock speeds also go down. That's normal.
It could be that a combined high CPU + GPU load, like you might get in a game, could push the system over the edge. If you want to be sure, you could try monitoring temps and clock speeds while playing SC2 (windowed I guess, or with those programs visible on an external monitor). If you want to truly stress your laptop--i.e. do this at your own risk--you could run a CPU stress test and GPU stress test simultaneously and watch the temperatures and clock speeds then. It's a good way to blow up test systems with inadequate cooling.
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The 85C was while I had a browser open and running the test, so nothing too stressful. I will attempt to clean out the dust. Other than that is there any other ways to lower the temperature, or am I going to need new parts (i'll more likely get a new computer) in order for the temperatures to go down and to be able to game without lag (if the high temperatures were the cause of the issue).
I have had a normal room fan pointed at my Laptop for about an hour and the temperatures have dropped to 60C, should I have this room fan continually pointed at my computer, or is it a hazard? After running FurMark with the fan pointed at it the temperatures shot to 85C within a few minutes, and then continued to slowly rise.
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This Morning I opened my laptop and cleaned out the dust from the fan and the heat grill. I was able to remove the fan so I could remove as much dust as possible, but was not able to remove the heat grill, so I just got out as much as I could with it in place. When I turned on my computer I immediately ran Furmark and here are the results.
Furmark Test After Cleaning
Much better results, as after 10 minutes it was at 70C, 18C cooler than when I started the test before I cleaned it, and 27C cooler than after 10 Minutes.
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Lag talks about the time difference between your actions and the time it takes to actually occur over the network.
Framerate drop, which is what I am pretty sure you are referring to, is when the number of frames you render per second is abnormally low.
Try to keep the two separate as a lot of people don't even know that there is a difference. They just shout IM LAGGING and thats all there is to it.
That being said, did you notice a fix when you cleaned your computer? Is your problem solved? 97C is way too high a temperature.
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Well I was experiencing both, In League of Legends I would have a frame rate drop most of the time, but while in Starcraft I would have a good FPS but when I clicked it would take a second or two to respond.
I have yet to play as the TS open is starting =D and I want to watch that first.
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On July 17 2011 06:38 IHertz wrote: Well I was experiencing both, In League of Legends I would have a frame rate drop most of the time, but while in Starcraft I would have a good FPS but when I clicked it would take a second or two to respond.
I have yet to play as the TS open is starting =D and I want to watch that first.
Hmmm, takes awhile to respond....
Do you ever get large period of times where the screen just freezes?
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Not really, when the countdown starts it will go to 3..2.. and then freeze at 2 (this is where you are searching for a match and it finds one) and then a few seconds later it will go to the loading screen. It does this every time, but it never actually freezes in game.
I just played a game of League of Legends and experienced no lag whatsoever, so cleaning out the dust has definitely improved performance.
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On July 17 2011 07:11 IHertz wrote: Not really, when the countdown starts it will go to 3..2.. and then freeze at 2 (this is where you are searching for a match and it finds one) and then a few seconds later it will go to the loading screen. It does this every time, but it never actually freezes in game.
I just played a game of League of Legends and experienced no lag whatsoever, so cleaning out the dust has definitely improved performance.
Let us know how SC2 runs.
BECAUSE THATS THE GAME THAT MATTERS AMIRITE?
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I have a laptop, and I had a similar problem. My core temp was like 85 C' at a time and it had to sometimes lower significantly its clock in order to not overheat. I opened my laptop, I cleared all the dust and stuff there (btw there wasn't much at all), still with no overall effect. I knew it was overheating, but I was baffled where the problem was from. The fan was blowing perfectly, there were no obstructions at all. Then I decided to go further and opened the heat sink. I looked carefully at the place between the heat sink and the processor, where normally some thermal grease should be placed. It was almost dry. After putting a drop, my laptop started working as a champ. It was so simple, yet I got lucky I started from the heat sink first.
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Just played a game of SC2 Phantom Mode and Didn't Lag at all, so I think its fixed.
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