Terrible Weird Problem

For the past month or so, I've had a terrible problem with my computer. I have no idea what the specific problem is (despite hours of troubleshooting), so I'm goign to explain everything as much as I can.

I used Vista Ultimate 32-bit for months on my machine and had no problems at all, everything worked great. Then, about 2 months ago, I switched to Vista Ultimate 64-bit because i figured I might as well get all I can out of my CPU.

Everything worked fine at first, no major problems. My games and everything else worked just fine. But then, one day (about a month after installing x64), I got this terribly weird lag while playing one of my games.

Here's how it always works: The game starts up just like normal and will play normally for a decent amount of time. Then, all of a sudden, it starts lagging TERRIBLY. My frame-rate drops to almost nothing and my CPU goes up to 80-100%. After a while, the lagging goes away and everything's perfectly smooth, but the the same lagging and CPU rise happens again for a while and then goes away again. It's like a pattern. The sessions of lag generally last a full 1-2 minutes.

After this problem first occurred, it never went away. I soon noticed that it didn't just apply to video games either. The rise in CPU usage and the video lag on my screen seemed to happen in a constant pattern no matter what I was doing.

I eventually reloaded my machine, thinking that would fix the problem (since it wasn't happening when I first reloaded last time). Get this: After reloading, and trying to play a game, the exact same problem happened again! My drivers were all up to date and windows itself was mostly up to date. This problem that I never even had until a month ago continued to torment me even after reloading.

So, the next step was trying to go back to 32-bit Vista. I reloaded with the 32-bit version and updated my computer and everything. Then, I tried to play a game. SAME PROBLEM :sa:

I noticed that there was an Nvidia update under the windows update program. I thought that maybe that was the problem since it could possibly be interfering with the fully up-to-date driver I got from Nvidia.com. I reloaded with the 64-bit version of vista Ultimate again, and made sure not to download the Nvidia driver update......but that still didn't work. I continued to get the exact same problem.

So now I'm pretty much back where I started. Running Windows Vista Ultimate x64. I've completely updated windows yet the problem persists. The only difference seems to be that I mostly only get the problem when I play games, rather then continually having it all the time.

Anyway, here's the important conclusions I've come to through troubleshooting:

• Reloading doesn't fix the problem
• While videos games ALWAYS trigger this problem, playing video games is not the only time this problem occurs
• Windows Update is not causing the problem, and neither is a lack of updates

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm being driven insane by this problem.

Thank you!

Welcome to the board.
Post your puter specs might be helpful for diagnostic.
Seems to me the problem caused by hardware malfunction.
Is your bios up to date? First make sure all connections, cards and rams are set and contacted well. Run some test on the rams and HDD first then check for overheat.
Let us know how is it turns out and we start from there. Good luck.

Apps, ie... games, run in RAM. As you've described the problem, it seems that Vista is trying to do two things at once: run your game, and something else. What that something else is is anyone's guess at this point? My initial thoughts are that it's indexing, updating or anti virus... or any combination of the three?

Listing your system specs would help a lot. Please go to your UserCP and enter them in.

Have you done any "tweaking", meaning, http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/81176-speed-up-performance-vista.html

Could be hardware but my bet is overheating. When was the last time you let the dust bunnies out of your computer. Over time dust does build up in the computer. Open the casse and have a look.

fireman604 said:

Could be hardware but my bet is overheating. When was the last time you let the dust bunnies out of your computer. Over time dust does build up in the computer. Open the casse and have a look.

Click to expand...

I figured cleaning out my computer was worth a shot. It wasn't too dusty, but the CPU area was very dusty, practically clogged. After vacuuming it out, I tried playing a game. NO LAG AT ALL!:D

I never would of thought that dust was causing the problem. this has truely been a learning experience.

Thank you so much for your advice!

Some times we tend to overlook the easy solutions. I dropped the processor temps in mine almost 30 degrees by cleaning the cpu. Glad to help