Animations run extremely slow

[Runsta]

This problem has come back several times after reformatting. When opening or closing a window, the animations that would take miliseconds suddenly take 10 seconds. I can see the program running perfectly fine as it loads, but I am unable to interact with it. I then go into some games like Civilization 5 or Recettear and the animations that would be quick take about 10 times as long to execute. This did not become an issue until Mid May, and Reformatting delays the bug from coming back. the only recent additions in hardware are a replacement motherboard(old one broke, ram difficulties), and a new CPU fan. Flash videos also work just fine

I am running the following

Intel Core i5
ATI 5870
8gb RAM
60gb SSD
500gb HDD
ASROCK P55 pro
650 psu

 

[livebriand]

Are you running the latest ati drivers?
Assuming you're running 64-bit Windows 7: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx

Also, try opening the case and spraying compressed air at the graphics card. It looks like yours has a fan so you should make sure you get dust out of that.