Sudden low FPS??

[Basskay]

Hello everybody, I was wondering if you guys could help me figure out what's up with my laptop.
I have an HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl Entertainment Laptop. It's not the greatest gaming platform, but it's done fairly well. I've used it to play Dawn of War, Half Life 2, CoD4, Spore, Fallout 3, and Minecraft, among others, on Medium or better settings, and they've all run at least decently.
Recently, my computer has started to throw a fit whenever I ask it to do anything that requires it to work. Minecraft and Dawn of War have both begun to give me low FPS after about a minute or so of gameplay. It's gotten to a point where even Flash games and YouTube videos have started to slow down, to the point where my whole computer slows down for a bit afterward. I've tried updating my drivers, defragging my system, cleaning up my registry, and running virus scans, but I have yet to fix the problem through any of these means. I'm planning on reinstalling Unreal Tournament '99 to see if that lags also, and I'll give you guys an update when I've finished with that.
Please help me!
Kevin.

 

[HEXiT]

sounds like it needs a clean, its probably throttling due to heat and dust.

 

[Basskay]

I was thinking that earlier. I'm surprised I didn't think of it before, but I noticed it gets pretty hot on one side, where I assume the CPU is, so it makes sense. I'm going to hopefully get some duster tomorrow and give it a quick clean.

 

[wonder44]

Yes give it a good clean. If you are able to reinstall the Operating system then that would help to.

 

[n8owner]

or download ccleaner that program helps me out a lot.

 

[Basskay]

Best answer selected by Basskay.