Windows 7 gaming: long lag spikes on games

[Sunkist]

I am here today to find some help maybe. I have played many games on my pc in the past and they ran smooth,lag spikes started about 5-6 months ago. Almost any game I play starts lagging after about 10-15mins on minimum settings,same thing on highest runs smooth zero lag untill the spike. Ripped enough hair out trying to figure it out my self.

Games I have played in the past that ran smooth on medium-high settings:
Fallout 3, Fallout new vagas, splinter cell conviction, Oblivion, Spore. the sims 3 and other similar games:busy: all these game have lag spikes long ones

Games that i have played from this year:
Dragon age 2, bullet storm, rift, star craft 2, need for speed hot pursuit 2011 and two worlds 2
which all those games work like a charm for like 10-15 minuets and then poof lag spike hell... :evil:

I have avira, spybot, maleware bytes, for anti-malicious software

any help will be appreciated asap if possible willing to use remote desktop connect.

I just want to play my pc again like i used to :grinthumb

________________________________________________________
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9800gt
OS:Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit Build 6.1,7601
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Hard Drive: Wester Digtal WD1001FALS-00J7B1 1TB
Last update to drivers and what not on: 4/19/2011
________________________________________________________

 

[superty12]

System requirements for each game. Specifically, the OS part.

 

[Sunkist]

all the games i have played before the lag spikes started i was using windows 7 ultimate and thay worked near perfectly and now thay lag just like every other game i try to play

Dragon age 2, bulletstorm, Oblivion splinter cell conviction have a little higher or equal Minimum: give or take processor speed
OS: Windows XP with SP3 OS: Windows Vista with SP2 OS: Windows 7
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (or equivalent) running at 1.8 GHz or greater
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8 GHz or greater
RAM: 1 GB (1.5 GB Vista and Windows 7)
Video: Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS 256 MB cards
Hard Drive: 7 GB
Sound: Direct X 9.0c Compatible Sound Card Windows Experience Index: 4.5

fallout 3, sims 3 and spore was windows xp/vista i just set compatability to xp service pack 3 worked fine befor the lag started to happen

i know i have min specs for all the games i listed in frist post maby not running xp but still used to be able to play nearly any game lag free

 

[Zen]

I don't know, but if this were me and one of my clients called me to report this sort of a thing, my mind would first drift to the thought of a possible buildup of information with the RAM itself and maybe it's inability to purge information and refresh itself from time to time! Sound like to me maybe something with the RAM has gone a muck and when a game is first being played there is plenty of room inside the RAM to take it all. But at the 10 to 15 minute mark, sound to me the RAM can't purge out old data and has very little to no more room inside itself of new data.

I think the correct term here is ((bottleneck))!

I could be wrong here, but this would be my first guess as far as getting a phone call about this!

 

[Sunkist]

your probably right i havent bought new ram sticks in years

or is there any way to check that

 

[Zen]

your probably right i havent bought new ram sticks in years

or is there any way to check that

Well for me since owning my own home computer business I have a RAM checker or tester in my work shop. But for you I would recommend just removing the RAM out of your system and being real careful not to touch the gold clad end connectors to much, RAM dislikes human PH chemicals, it makes them break down and rot!

Put the RAM is a zip lock baggy and then proceed to a place like Best Buy and go to their customer service desk and they will have a member of their "geek squad" do a check of all the sticks of RAM. If all come back clean, with no problems, than RAM is not the issue. Also if you don't have a Best Buy near you and might have a store called Fry's Electronics, they can test your RAM there as well. Plus both places usually don't charge for RAM testing.

Hope this helps!

 

[tehbanz]

Hold on a minute

Don't patronize geek squad just yet!

PLEASE run a free memtest first
www(dot)memtest(dot)org

just download the .iso

burn it to a disc (if you don't know how to burn an .iso google it) or use imgburn, it's pretty simple

Put it into your PC and boot to disc, it will check the integrity of you ram! if you have a problem with the ram it will let you know. At that point i would recommend scanning each stick individually to see if it's a problem with both sticks or just one.

THEN if both your ram sticks are fine , I would try doing various things

Ccleaner, Defraggler etc.

Possibly an OS re-load on a seperate HDD , test your games that way etc.

 

[Sunkist]

welll i did the test thay checked out to be fine but i also downloaded a cpu gaget and i seen that 1 of the cores spikes up to nearly all the way its always the same one to

 

[Mark56]

Just a thought to add to this, memory testing software can miss minor faults so try running the PC with just one stick at a time, if the problem persists swap the sticks around.

Also, this may be your GPU getting too hot, give the fan on the card a good blast from a can of compressed air.

Also check the voltage is set correctly for the RAM in your Bios.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Since you say you use Avira, Spybot and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, don't you think it might have to do with the real-time protection of one of these? I used to use NOD32 along with MSE, and I used to have this problem. I uninstalled one of them and it was gone. Maybe you could try that?

Not sure whether all three have real-time protections running or not, but wouldn't hurt to check IMHO.

 

[Mark56]

Just found a good stability tester for your GPU.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/FurMark-v1.4.0-download-1965.html

And this one will test the stability of your CPU.

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

And I could not agree more with Rage, you must only run one Anti Virus at any one time, two running together will cause problems and hog resources. You can leave Spybot and Avira running but not with Malwarebytes.

 

[superty12]

What happened between point of purchase and point of problem?

 

[T77]

Yes,you need to uninstall malwarebytes as it might be having a conflict with avira.
Secondly,I suggest you install the 64-bit version of windows 7,as the 32-bit version will only utilize 3-3.5gigs of ram.
Rest all of your specs are fine.

 

[superty12]

Did you run MemTest for 7 passes? For each stick? That is the reccommended minimum.