Sudden FPS drop - help apreciated

[Warmagi]

Hi everyone,
From the beggining.. My FPS its really bad. And it wasnt yesterday. I did nothing to my software. Yestarday I turned off my PC after playing PR. Today when I started PR, first map Fools Road I could barely walk.

What I tried:
- Defragmenting with diskeeper
- Checking for viruses and spyware
- Checked other games. All experiencing the same performance lost.

Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 1.86 Mhz
DDR 2 2x512 MB GEIL PC 800
Gigabyte I965P S3 775
GeForce 7900 GS 256/256 1.2ns Zalman
Windows XP Professional SP2

Tommorow I will get my ordered 2GB of GEIL RAM. But I dont think that will improove anything since before today everything was ok (as it was, cause wouldnt be ordering RAM in the first place).
Any help or guidance (since Im not the best with this computer thing) what to try, do or test and how next will be apreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Warmagi

[[R-CON]MrD]

remove the last software you put on the machine. Keep going to before the problem

remove PR, make sure PR folder gone, delete Battlefield2 cache folder in My Documents, clear registry, reinstall game!

I sometimes get that and have to repeat install till it works. No idea what causes it, just have to force the game to install until it works right.

Otherwise, you might be looking at a failing PSU

[jOHNNYdOUBE]

Fools road is tough on some P.C.'s bro.
You made the right call with the ram,
If you bought gaming ram, don't use any old ram with it,
buy gaming replacements.
happened to me.
used 2 gigs new, 1 gig old.
replaced old 1 gig with new fast like my other ram
I can walk on fools road now, and that is 3 gig of ram we are talkin'

[Warmagi]

I dont think it's only PR related, cause all the other games are stattering after a while too.

I found on the internet program called speedfan. I've checked the temp. Ambient temp i around 40 C, HD is 44C, and Proccesor and Grafic Card cores are around 65 to 70 C. Dont know how reliable this is, but it doesnt sound good does it? Its all when the PC is idle.

[SnipingCoward]

65-70°C is the maximum temp of this GFX card

since this is in idle state you should definitly concern about overheating!

open the box and have a look inside - look for dust flakes - either vacuum it (very carefully!) or use a can of gas to blow the dust out
you definitly want to make sure the fans & fan blades are all clean - then check the cooling blocks (the swiss cheese ones ) - might even want to take out the card and clean it seperately

now that you cleaned your pc from dust - leave the side open and try running a game, MAKE 100% SURE THAT ALL FANS ARE WORKING (especially if you unplugged one)

keep the side open this allows more air to come in and cool Alt-Tab out of battlefield after ~10 min of gameplay and check on the temp again with your tool

one thing that happens to me from time to time (and i got that problem right now again on my laptop ) the DPCs/Interrupt process is working too hard - as far as i know this is caused by a) faulty/broken drivers, b) broken systemfiles
to check if this applies to you - download Process Explorer another symptom is that the mouse lags while the hdd light glows (hdd access)

if you are really desperate try the windows system restore - maybe you are lucky and got a restore point not too far back in the past

[Warmagi]

Today morning I bought can of compressed air. Opened my "PC BOX" and there was somethin staring at me calmly, blinking from time to time. It was a dust monster. I took the ultimate weapon in my hand and sprayed him with compressed air. He was fighting violently and didn't want to give up. At the end, when he was almost no more I heard a faint voice saying " I'll be back". "I'll be waiting" - I answered slowly with confidence in my voice.

After that my temperatures are around:
39-52 C CPU; 42-53 C Grafic Card Core; 40 C HD and ambient - IDLE
54-60 C CPU; 56-64 C Grafic Card Core; 43-46 HD and ambient - when stressed.

The teperatures are worse when the case is closed. Maye I should add one fan somewhere on my case? What about PSU? How can I know if the voltage is correct? There is something in SpeedFan, but I dont know if the numbers are correct or not. For example
Vcore 1.22
Vcore 1.90
+3.3V 3.33
+5V 4.97
+12V 0.00 - 2.00 mean0.26
-12V 16.97
-5V 4.75 - 8.63 mean5.51
+5V 5.13
Vbat 3.14
Any suggestions, answers... tools to check things out. I will get my 2 gigs of ram in an hour.


PS: All fans are working fine, but dont know how efficient they are.

[jOHNNYdOUBE]

good luck, just be gentle installing the ram.
Line up up and push even till 2 clicks.
done.

[Warmagi]

The new 2Gigs are doing great job. No lag so far. But... my proccesors and graphic card are still overheating. I need to find whats causing it. If its not enough fans why they werent overheating before. Please, I need your help.

Oh... today I observed some artifacts on the screen temp of graphic card was 84...

[[R-CON]MrD]

have you got a generic fan on your card? maybe the fan runoffs are blocked by skin and dust particles? If you keep getting problems then a zalman flower 3rd party fan is your choice.

Or your card could just be failing. They do sometimes and it sucks.

[Warmagi]

Cheers MrD. There was a lot of dust there, but I cleaned it, but maybe it damaged the fan... but what abaut processor? Its not only the card, processors are also overheating. Theit temperature when stressed is around 65. So the problem is bigger I assume. Maybe as someone said failing PSU, or software related... I have really no idea. Everything still have its varranty so thats good, but I would like to find a problem and not to send my whole rig away...

PS: it is Zalman fan right now.