Freezing / FPS drops during Gaming

[Stealth3si]

The problem I have with most semi-old games (Half-Life 2, Call of Duty 2, FarCry, FEAR, Condemned, Deus Ex 2) is that the game will freeze for 5-15 seconds with either sound looping, sound off or sound normally playing. and then the FPS drops by at least half. The game's FPS will stay that way forever with no freezing whatsoever until I change the resolution from the game options video menu and then back or I load a saved game. But I'd have to do that everytime the 'freezing/FPS drop' happens. I've used process of elimination and am not sure what the exact problem is. All I have concluded so far is that the following issues are eliminated:

-overclocked or stock speeds of CPU/RAM/Video Card
-temperature
-airflow
-background software (i.e. AV, firewall, anti-spyware, defrag, downloading)
-HD fragmentation
-Upated latest graphics and sound driver version, game patches, service packs, mobo drivers
-Sound card (HW acceleration on/off)
-OS reinstallation
-RAM timing
Here are my specs:
CPU: P4 2.60c Ghz SL6WS OC'd @ 3.25 Ghz (Zalman CNPS7700-Cu w/ 120mm T&T fan)
Mobo: MSI-6728 865PE NEO2-S
RAM: 4x256 MB Kingston K PC3200 DDR400
HD: Hitachi Deskstar: 160 GB (SATA), 8x GB (ATA-133), 6x GB (ATA-100)
GPU: BFG Tech Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT OC AGP (w/ Zalman VF900-Cu w/ Zalman 80mm fan)
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2
Optical: Pioneer DVR-108 (v1.18)
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2
PSU: Sparkle ATX-400PN (120mm fan)

Ideas anyone?

I'd appreciate any help.

 

[N3051M]

you didn't mention whether you've tested ram yet or not.. link below.

 

[Stealth3si]

you didn't mention whether you've tested ram yet or not.. link below.

Do you mean testing the stability of the ram or whether or not it's bad/faulty? If yes I'm familiar w/ memtest and which RAM timings give me errors or not. Fine. I'll reset the timings to stock (again) and test the gaming. That way I know it'll pass the memtest for sure, unless it's a bad faulty RAM I'm screwed, which I highly doubt but will try anyway.

 

[N3051M]

yeh..

always start with the critical parts of your system then move onto the next.. you'd be supprised on how small things are overlooked..

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Try playing around with the AGP Aperture Size in the BIOS. It might fix the issue or limit it to some extent.