PC Games Slow Down Then Normal Again

[bryman1970]

Within the last month or so, my installed video games will drastically slow down to a crawl, making them basically unplayable while in this mode. After about 5-10 minutes, it all goes back to normal. Within about 10 minutes, the slow down comes back and this process repeats until I get frustrated and quit playing. The main games i've been playing are Morrowind, Oblivion and Mount & Blade. I have a few others installed but I haven't checked these since I don't play them as often as the other 3 mentioned. For example, Mount & Blade and Morrowind have the slowdown issue. As far as Oblivion goes, when I try to start it through OBSE, it says the version of my game isn't recognized. I've had this problem before and after reinstalling the game, the issue disappeared and I was able to play again. Concerning the slow down problem, i've never had this issue before. I've looked at many forums and topics regarding this and all of them have mentioned the possibility that my PC may be overheating. I have 4 fans in my PC; one blowing against the motherboard, one blowing out the back of the PC case and a fan sucking in and exiting from the power supply. All are working. In hopes I could fix the issue with more air blowing through the PC, I removed both sides of the case, propped the PC at a higher level than before, and turned a house fan on. I have AC running constantly and the fan isn't actually blowing into the case but blowing out into the room. All in all, it's pretty cool in here. This didn't seem to fix the problem. I've used a bunch of programs to try and locate and remove any viruses that may be present. The programs I used are Spybot, Ad-Aware, Kapersky PURE (free edition), AVG (free edition), SmitFraudFix, CCCleaner and probably a few others I can't think of at the moment. I've run these programs several times in safe mode as well to no avail. The only games i've uninstalled and reinstalled so far are Mount & Blade. It works fine at first, then about 15-20 minutes later, the slowdowns start up again and the whole cycle repeats itself. I don't know if having the remaining .exe files from the other games (Morrowind, possibly also Oblivion and others) will re-corrupt the .exe from Mount & Blade. The strange thing about Mount & Blade is when I look up at the sky during a battle, the game speed goes back to normal. It's only when i'm looking around at all the fighting going on around me that the slow down occurs. I'm completely stumped at the moment. Hopefully I can salvage my characters in these games without reinstalling everything and starting all over again. Not to mention, it takes hours, even days or weeks, to install all the mods i'm using in Morrowind and Oblivion. Has anyone had this problem and maybe know a fix for it? Edited July 21, 2011 by bryman1970

[Iv000]

Could you please post your PC specs?

Also you said this has never happened before, have you been playing M&B, MW, OB for a longer time?

Do you have other games to try out? And are they running good?

 

I too had slowdown problems, but not like that.

You should firstly defragment the folders where the games are, with any program you want, an example Defraggler.

Then you could try re installing your GPU drivers, I explain how to do that in this thread, note that's for ATI cards only.

[samadchaz]

maybe Its happening because thermal throttling is turned on.Contact your IT tech. to turn this off(its in BIOS)

Auslogics Disk Defrag "Defrag & Optimize" are top these days(free always, US army certified)

[bryman1970]

Here's my PC specs:

 

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-Bit (6.1, Build 7601)

Processor: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5200 @ 2.50 GHz (2 CPU's), ~2.5GHz

Memory: 4096 RAM

DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

 

I'm not sure what other specs might be needed, if any.

 

@lv000: I've been playing the 3 games for quite a long time. My pc is only about 2 or 3 years old and was custom built by a friend. I told him I want to have the capability to play very good video games as well as plenty more memory to hold all of my music. Within the last few months, I downloaded a version of Burnout 3. When I started playing that game, I noticed the cars would slow down after playing for a bit just as my current games do, then return to normal after a little bit. I thought it was only from that game, and uninstalling and deleting it would solve the problem. I'm assuming I have some sort of virus, but as I mentioned before, i've tried all sorts of software and I still have the problem. Is Defraggler better than the Defragging utility within my OS? I do recall initially that when I ran Spybot a few times, the trojan Win32.Frost (I think that was it) would pop up. After the first few checks with Spybot and running a few other programs, that entry hasn't come up since. I also notice that when I use my task manager, there's a process in there called csrss.exe. I don't remember ever seeing that within the processes before. I also read that it's part of my OS, but could also be a virus disguised as a necessary application. I've tried to end the process, but access is always denied. I'm still completely stumped.

[prandiningrat]

I dont know if this true, but you seem installing two antivirus which is not compatible,AVG and kasperky, trust to only one antivirus and the program like spybot, adware, etc, is not needed since kaspersky or AVg having these features. Just makesure your databases are uptodate..

You can use Autoruns from sysinternals(you can also download process explorer to replace task manager), to see if any unwanted services or behaviour that probably run in the background.(Not all viruses only an exe file but can be DLL which was not listed in the task manager)...recently I've got dll virus and run as driver(which slow down the computer) and deleting manually (yes antivirus can detect but wont delete), fortunately the virus is still 'beta' so won't run in safe mode and i can run the program easily to delete it, as another dll so need to unregister first...

I'm still assuming that your problem is just schedule check of or any other background activities by antivirus, so enabling gaming profile can help..or just simple try play the game without antivirus...

 

 

Is Defraggler better than the Defragging utility within my OS?

Deffraggler is better for me because feature "quick defrag" and at least is faster than windows defrag...

I also notice that when I use my task manager, there's a process in there called csrss.exe.

Csrss is one of the important windows services like Svchost.exe and you dont need to end the process...

[bryman1970]

Yeah, I didn't use Kapersky and AVG at the same time. I have AVG on my pc right now and i've still run Spybot, Malwarebytes and the AVG scan. My game still slows down. I have also played the game without any antivirus programs installed before all this happened and it was fine. I keep going back to that Burnout 3 installation. I didn't seem to have the problem until I first noticed it within that game.

[prandiningrat]

If you still assuming that your PC is infected by virus, you can use autoruns above to see all entries of your OS when windows started..Common condition when pc infected is CPU resource above 0% used when idle and no programs are running..

Also, your pc specs above is missing with motherboard specs. you can use CPUZ, then to get complete results you need save as txt or html under tools in the last tab, this report will includes motherboard and GPU specific sensor with temp, fan speed and voltages. I think you will need it, to makes sure all values are normal.

I'm not familiar with your games..so, any further check is needed, and others who have experience will help you..