My gaming laptop experiences lag during gameplay with certain computer titles.
My gaming laptop experiences lag during gameplay with certain computer titles.
Hello,
I’m experiencing intermittent performance drops in games like Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Guild Wars 2 – typically experiencing frame rates that fluctuate between 3 and 15 frames per second every few minutes. I previously suspected a virus infection, leading me to reinstall my operating system several weeks ago, but the problem persists.
I inquired about this issue on the Guild Wars 2 official technical support forum, and it was determined that a significant factor is my processor reaching temperatures between 90°C and 75°C during these lag spikes. A suggestion was made to clean my laptop’s cooling system and replace the thermal paste.
I attempted to clean my laptop externally, but this did not resolve the issue. Considering I only recently purchased this gaming laptop (approximately one and a half years ago), excessive dust accumulation seems unlikely. Replacing the thermal paste is somewhat challenging given my limited experience with laptop hardware.
Could anyone offer further advice regarding potential solutions to address this problem?
System details:
CPU: Intel Core i5-2450M
VGA: NVIDIA GTX 570M / 1.5GB GDDR5
Display Panel: 17.3" FHD, 1920×1080 (Non-Glare)
Memory: DDRIII 8GB(4GB*2)
Storage: 1TB (500GB*2 RAID 0)7200RPM
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n
Operating System: Windows 7
Driver Version: 334.89
A decrease in temperature would be logical if the system experienced a brief pause. Ninety degrees Celsius is exceptionally warm.
If the delay occurred while the CPU temperature increased, I would accept that as a sign of overheating; however, a temperature reduction wouldn't typically result in lag. A drop in temperature is actually caused by the lag.
Intel specifies a maximum rating of 100°C for this processor, so it’s unlikely that it’s throttling or undergoing any similar adjustments until temperatures exceed this level. Desktop users rarely allow their CPUs to reach such high temperatures, but it can occur on certain laptops.
Nevertheless, maintaining temperatures below 70-80°C would be preferable.
What are the video card temperatures?
Regarding the concern about dust accumulation on the cooler after a year, I’ve observed that some coolers become significantly clogged within six months, while others remain relatively clean for over five years. This depends heavily on environmental conditions and factors like pet dander and airborne particles.
It might take less than a year for this particular cooler (even though it wasn’t visible externally), and it would shut down if temperatures rose above 100°C.
I advise using a compressed air canister to direct short bursts of air into the expulsion vents while the notebook is turned off, and repeat this process on the fan side as well. The goal is to dislodge any obstructions within the heatsink by breaking up the dust, and then pushing it out of the fan side.
Two cores with Hyper-Threading might not always be sufficient for certain tasks in some games. Adjusting graphics settings could potentially alleviate these performance issues.
I haven’t personally investigated this, but you might want to investigate whether disabling core parking improves game performance. Windows automatically shuts down inactive "2" HT cores when possible, and some users have found this negatively impacts performance. You can find information about mitigating these effects online through a search engine like Google.
Graphics card temperatures are approximately 70 to 75 degrees Celsius.
That doesn’t appear too concerning.
I would still attempt to clean the cooler using compressed air.