Games lag horribly after 1-3 hours of play, restarting the PC fixes the problem - Hardware & Software

Hey guys, I've recently had this problem with my PC: Whenever I would play ANY game - any at all, that would be say Minecraft, Team Fortress 2 or Half-Life 2, I would play it for 1-3 hours and it would start lagging. My FPS would drop to a small amount, I would get stuttering and it would be generally unplayable. Quitting the game won't fix the problem - after quitting ad restarting the game, the lag is still there. However, after my PC is restarted, the games don't lag anymore. During gaming, my GPU reaches up to 70 celcius and doesn't go anywhere past that point. My PC specs: (I've been using this since 2001, it has been upgraded three times since then) Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Amd Athlon X64 Dual Core Processor ~3-1 GHz 4096 MB of RAM NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 2768 MB I have tried tens and tens of solutions offered by google and friends, but none of it helped. Re-installing Windows, updating drivers, re-installing software such as DirectX and Visual C++ - nothing worked. This problem doesn't bother me that much, but I would like to see what the fault could be.

Apply thermal compound to CPU or get a new HDD/Mobo

[QUOTE=joshdasmif;37032751]Apply thermal compound to CPU or get a new HDD/Mobo[/QUOTE] My HDD is 2-3 months old. I've bought it relatively not long ago. Also, could you actually tell me the grounds of your reason to do all this? I'm not really sold to buy a new HDD or apply thermal paste to my CPU just because a stranger on the internet told me so.

[QUOTE=joshdasmif;37032751]Apply thermal compound to CPU or get a new HDD/Mobo[/QUOTE] If it's a heat issue, the CPU ain't gonna cool down enough in the 3 or so minutes it takes to restart to give good performance for the following 3 hours. [editline]2nd August 2012[/editline] I had a similar issue with network activity (downloading or uploading) causing significant slowdown to the entire computer after a few hours of being switched on. A restart cleared it for the following few hours until it started up again. Could it be the cache on the drive packing a mental? I'm not sure about the specifics but could it be that the cache isn't getting rid of old data and therefore just filling up? OR a similar issue with the RAM not dumping data? This is a question for FP in general. Try pulling the RAM out and re-seating it; could be some pins aren't connecting properly.

[QUOTE=Maloof?;37032953] Try pulling the RAM out and re-seating it; could be some pins aren't connecting properly.[/QUOTE] Will do. I'll do that after I get more suggestions since I'm not much experienced with connecting and disconnecting hardware inside the computer tower.

Compare your RAM usage before and after these 3 hours. Chances are you have a program/driver causing memory leaks.

[QUOTE=Killuah;37033235]Compare your RAM usage before and after these 3 hours. Chances are you have a program/driver causing memory leaks.[/QUOTE] Any idea what program or driver could be causing this? I already re-installed my NVIDIA graphics card drivers and my CPU. I'll compare once I have the time for it.

[QUOTE=mp3karas;37033520]Any idea what program or driver could be causing this? I already re-installed my NVIDIA graphics card drivers and my CPU. I'll compare once I have the time for it.[/QUOTE] Doesn't matter what program is causing a memory leak, really. A leak is a leak and it affects everything that uses your RAM.

Okay, I played for a few hours of TF2 and Minecraft but the problem just didn't appear. I compared my RAM usage 5 minutes after I booted my computer and before shutting it down. The RAM usage is about 50-200 MB different. The problem comes out of nowhere and not in a constant, timed type of way. I'll have my PC checked soon, I've also had problems with my PC sometimes just freezing and shutting down for no reason while surfing the Internet.

Having the same issue and basically EXACT same specs. Nothing is really different.What motherboard do you have?

This happened to me and then I took my computer apart and dusted it and the problem was fixed.