Help - Intermittent Perdiodic Slowdown

Greetings geeks.

It seems I am having problems. When gaming, I get intermittent slowdowns. They seem to appear every 60 seconds or so. I have not actually timed them, but they occur at evenly spaced intervals. For example, Fallout 3 will run flawlessly over 40 FPS, and then it drops to literally 3-5 fps every minute or so.

I have suspicions, but there are so many variables I was looking for some advice on how to start looking for the problem. Here are my suspicions:

1. Video Driver
2. Sound Drivers
3. BIOS Settings
4. Virus

I might start with the video driver, uninstall, sweep, and reinstall. And just troubleshoot in the order listed above. I was hoping that in the meantime someone could offer some advice, which would be greatly appreciated.

Here is the rig in question:

AMD 5600 X2, GeForce 8800GT, Soundblaster Audigy, Asus M2V-MX SE motherboard, 2 gig of dual channel ram, and Vista Home Premium fully patched.

I have played around with shutting down background programs, to no avail. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Try disabling virus protection and playing the game.

How long has this been happening for??

Have you changed any HW or installed or uninstalled anything around about the same time this started?

 

I have had no hardware changes. That is the puzzling part! I guess I will make a checklist, doing things formally and orderly, and start with your suggestions. I will disconnect from the internet and shutdown Antivir, SUPERAntispyware, and Zone Alarm.

Thanks for the starting point!

 

try this app out:
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=5952

if your games improve, then some background apps might be giving you those problems.

If it is for sure a regular interval (not random) then you may have some failing hardware (RAM or Hard Drive)

You could temporarily turn of virtual memory, to save from writing to the hard drive, or run memtest for the ram
http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

 

Definitely, although I'd eliminate the easy ones first such as Backgrounds apps and AV software, After that I'd probably go the RAM as the smoking gun said and then the HDD.

As always, It never hurts to run these. Unless of course your an invalid registry entry, some Malware or a junk file

READ & RUN ME FIRST

Basic Computer Maintenance Everyone Should Do.

 

Well fellas - I did some more investigating before I ran the Malware/Virus protocols. Heat is the issue.

My CPU was running at 79 celsius! The motherboard was not far behind. I removed the case cover to cool things down. Although I have not checked the temp, things are running fine. I installed a third fan. I now have one fan drawing air in and two forcing it out. From what I understand there should be more airflow going out than in. The second fan should do that.

However, I am hoping there is not more to it. I really don't want to remove the CPU cooling apparatus and remove and reapply thermal paste, or install a new more efficient ($$) cooling unit.

When I get the time I will replace the case cover and check the effectiveness of the new fan. I forgot to mention, the GPU is running normally.

 

*whistles* thats a good temp :-D have to remember that one ... your internals might just need a good clean out. Whats your GPU running at?? Is the system custom built or brand name?? I find most brand name systems seem to be lacking a little in the Thermo Paste area, even though you're supposed to replace the whole lot when needing to add more, it won't hurt to simply squeeze an extra little dob in the centre. Also, having neat and tidy wires helps airflow.