Sudden FPS Drops in my games

Hello all,

Just wanted to say that my older alienware laptop is giving me major fps drops on games.

My laptop model is the m14x r1

The specs are

Core i7-2820QM CPU @2.30Ghz

Ram: 8GB ddr3

GPU: Nvidia gt555m (3GB)

OS: W7 Home premium

500GB HGST 7200RPM hard drive

Are there any fixes I can do not involving hardware?

I took the laptop apart and put it back together and of course, two big things broke, (Mousepad, wifi card), and my LED on my keyboard. Ouch. So I rather not take this apart again and I also cannot take it to the PC store right now. If I have to, it'll take a while to save up to do so. I bought a new laptop but it's not performing as good as this laptop is amazingly, so I rather just fix this one. I do not think I can return the new laptop since I installed windows 7 over 10 on it, sadly. I just tested games on it and I'm not impressed for its cpu and dedicated GPU. Very dissapointed.

But anyways, If I fix this fps drop issue, I'll be golden for this laptop. I do not need to fix any of the things I broke right now for I have an external mouse and ethernet cable to my wifi box next to me.

Thank you in advance.

I'd recommend making sure your drivers are up to date.

The Fonz said:

When playing, are you running applications or downloads/installs in the background (Either on this computer or another machine)?

I will try it again with no downloads. Thank you.

HamidJ said:

I'd recommend making sure your drivers are up to date.

Okay, will do.

Do you know any free driver updating software that I can use?

Thanks

I would want to use those, I much rather go to each manufacturer and get what I need. You only need the audio and video drivers really.

Make sure to install everything the games wants... DirectX, CC++, etc,.

AstaLaVista said:

I would want to use those, I much rather go to each manufacturer and get what I need. You only need the audio and video drivers really.

Make sure to install everything the games wants... DirectX, CC++, etc,.

Hi,

I already have both the audio and videos drivers

and the game's install all of the needed components.

i've seen 542 frames per second drop down to 115 frames per second playing fear combat.
the game doesn't use 400mb (less really) with a 2gb graphics card.
seems bad.

can you come up with any reason, such as other players on the screen and|or other effects such as sparks flying or something?
can you go to an empty server or some empty area of a map without any action & the fps drops continue to happen?
if you can't be anywhere without any animation & no movement of the mouse or keyboard & no other players without a steady frame per second, then there's something wrong.
i wasn't able to do it for a while, had to look up some tweaks - but after those tweaks is when i got the large fps difference (those results are from a fraps benchmark).

if they bounce up & down without anything going on in the screen, then you've probably got a processor scheduling problem.

i looked up some benchmark scores of 3dmark cloud gate & that graphics card scores the same as a gtx285 (a little lower honestly) - and that is with a core2quad q6600.

are your expectations of the card too low?
you didn't really say anything other than sudden fps drops, yet everybody gets 'em when the action in the game is higher than without.
the only way to avoid it is to use a graphics card that is fast enough to hold a steady fps with vsync on.
(tweaking the processor scheduling could get you more fps, but it won't stop the fps from dropping)
but as i said, is it a big drop as if something is seriously wrong - or are you new to video games on the computer?

anwaypasible said:

i've seen 542 frames per second drop down to 115 frames per second playing fear combat.
the game doesn't use 400mb (less really) with a 2gb graphics card.
seems bad.

can you come up with any reason, such as other players on the screen and|or other effects such as sparks flying or something?
can you go to an empty server or some empty area of a map without any action & the fps drops continue to happen?
if you can't be anywhere without any animation & no movement of the mouse or keyboard & no other players without a steady frame per second, then there's something wrong.
i wasn't able to do it for a while, had to look up some tweaks - but after those tweaks is when i got the large fps difference (those results are from a fraps benchmark).

if they bounce up & down without anything going on in the screen, then you've probably got a processor scheduling problem.

i looked up some benchmark scores of 3dmark cloud gate & that graphics card scores the same as a gtx285 (a little lower honestly) - and that is with a core2quad q6600.

are your expectations of the card too low?
you didn't really say anything other than sudden fps drops, yet everybody gets 'em when the action in the game is higher than without.
the only way to avoid it is to use a graphics card that is fast enough to hold a steady fps with vsync on.
(tweaking the processor scheduling could get you more fps, but it won't stop the fps from dropping)
but as i said, is it a big drop as if something is seriously wrong - or are you new to video games on the computer?

Hi, will do when I get the laptop back since I just gave it to my friend to work on.

Thanks