Random low FPS in games PROBLEM

[erikjansson]

Hello! I am experiencing problems when playing games. I usually play Counter-Strike Source, Half Life 2 Franchise, some Crysis, Burnout Paradise and lots of other Steam games. Before I explain the problem let me introduce my PC specs:

Video card: Sapphire ATI Radeon x1650 PRO 512MB (used for around 1 year)
Proccessor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GhZ (used for around 3 years)
Random Access Memory(RAM): 1GB(used for around 1 year)
PowerSupply: 450 Watts(Its switched to run at 230 volts cuz i live in Europe)
Hard Drive(HDD): 1st: 49GB(used for 2-3 years), 2nd: 149GB(used for around 1 year)
Motherboard: ASUS P5PE-VM(used for around 3 years)
*Cooler that came with Proccesor(50-60 degress Celcius)
*Cooler that came with Graphics Card(60-90 degress Celcius, yea its normal)
*Integrated sound if u want to know

Now, here is my problem:
For example when playing Counter-Strike Source with 3 bots on Expert on de_dust2 I get around 40-90 FPS, then after some time playing(3 minutes after..), the FPS goes down to 17-23 for just like less then half a second. I know, I know I might just be a little over sensitive but belive me its pretty annoying. Like u are about to give a headshot on a guy and this **** comes up. I dont know why this happens. I usually had a problem on the same computer, on the same specs as well, but it was faaaaaaar worse. I played CSS, with FPS of around 40-90 and after 1 minute the FPS went down to 5-20 with no comeback after just like 5 minutes of gameplay. My solution was to take out my 512 RAM memory which probably had some kind of problem and then, clean my CPU fan(The CPU was probably overheating). That resulted with the comming of this new problem. Though I am pretty pleased that I can now "Play" games at a decent Framerate.

Here is my bet: That the RAM is too low, I am planning on buying more 1GB.
My system uses with nothing open(Only things that are open are: Windows, and Steam) and it uses around 600-700 Ram memory. So it got around 300-400 Ram memory to play games. <<<<< Is this the problem?!?!


I want to know cuz my dad is gonna kill me if this dosnet resolve the problem. If i come up with more problems happening or solution I will post it here(I know a lot of ppl have this problem).


Oh and here is what I have already done to try to fix the other problem which I USED to have:
1. Format the C: HDD
2. Took the 512 mb RAM mem(I used to have 1.5GB)
3. Took the 1GB RAM mem
4. Took the Graphics Card out and plugged it back in
5. Took the Graphics Card out and used the integrated Graphics card which sucks
6. Cleaned the CPU cooler by blowing in it(LOL), and then i noticed that it would take the hole day so I used a brush instead.(NOTE: The cooler was FULL of dust, the holes that were supposed to ventilate were covered in dust so no air was flowing though the CPU)
7. Cleaned the hole PC(Video Card, RAM, etc...
8. Noticed that I was stupid to clean with a brush.(It would have been better to buy a air pressurized gun to clean everything in one go)
9. Unplugged some things, like USB camera, keyboard, mouse etc....
10. Unplugged Monitor and switch it to my fathers one



Thats all u guys, hope u guys can help I would REALLY appreciate if u could help me out.

I will keep this Thread updated, if I find a solution, find more problems(HOPE NOT!), forgot to add something, or if any of u guys ask. I will always try to reply to any replys.


Thanks, Erik (Took me 10 minutes to write =D)

 

[r_manic]

It's also possible your card is heating up as you play, leading to slowdowns. Are you able to check the monitor of your GPU as you play games?

 

[ainarssems]

You have too litle RAM.
Slowdowns that you experience happen when the data needed is not in the memory and it needs to read it from HDD and when writing data from memory to pagefile.

Since you say your system uses 600-700 MB without anything open I assume You are using Vista or W7 as for XP it should be half of that. For Vista /W7 2GB is bare minimum of RAM for gaming. And 300-400MB left for games is like nothing. you should never use all 100% of RAM, because it really slows down when You go over 90%. Which leaves You more like 200-300MB for game. And some games like GTA IV can use over 3GB RAM on their own.

It could also be overheating or bad hddd but that s less likely according to supplied info and temps.