frame rate drops

So I built a new computer, links on the bottom of this post, and Im have frequent issues with framerates dropping to about 10fps, on any setting, in any game. The drops sometimes happen with some action, sometimes staring at a blank wall. It happens about every 15 mins for a good 40 seconds, then snaps back to otherwise expected performance. I have the latest drivers and such for the mainboard and videocard, and have no clue whats going on.

Any help would be much appreciated.





MB MSI P6N SLI-FI NF650ISLI - Retail
VGA EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR 8800GTS - Retail
CPU INTEL|C2D E4300 1.8G 775 2M R - Retail
MEM 1Gx2|CORSAIR TWIN2X2048-5400c4 - Retail
Recertified: HD 500G|WD 7K 16M SATA2 WD5000KS

Sounds to me like a driver issue. Try rolling back to previous drivers.

Either that or something is tying up your CPU in the background.

well I just bought the computer, there's nothing I've installed yet besides a few games, and no drivers to roll back to

Scan for spyware. Are you running a third party firewall? Also, are you on a wireless network? All of these things affect fps when data is uploaded/downloaded to the web while you're running the game.

I just had this problem! My laptop would run games perfect, but every 15-30 seconds I would get a drop to about 7 fps for a few seconds. I came here and was given the idea that my video card may be overheating and fans needed cleaning. I was reluctant to open my laptop so i blew into the vents fairly hard and a TON of dust flew out.

It fixed my problem, but it seems like your drop in fps is a little more spread out.. Hope this helps you out a little! :D

Is your hd being accessed when you have this lag?