Solved Performance Lag Spikes, CPU Usage Decreases

Sekuiya

New Member
Messages
5
It's an odd problem and I'm not really sure what is going on.
Basically, it seems that from time to time the CPU usage of a certain program decreases for no apparent reason, when it should be actually getting higher, leading to performance lag spikes.

I'll give an example to make the situation more clear.
I installed Sleeping Dogs, a game distributed by Square Enix, and while "trying" to play in windowed mode I had the Task Manager running in the background, and from time to time the percentage of CPU usage would decrease, like from 60% to 15%, which would reflect in very low FPS ingame and tthen it would rise again, just for it to come down again after a short while.

But this don't happen with the game exclusive, Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player, browser, heck, everything. I just installed Windows 8 yesterday and not really sure what might be causing it.

Hope you guys can shed some light on my problem. If you need any extra info, be sure to tell!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64
    CPU
    Intel Pentium Dual T3400 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
So, two days later, no one has any idea of what might be happening?
I have somewhat new info. Basically, the drop in CPU usage don't occurs randomly from what I gathered. It seems more like that, every time the CPU usage gets to 100% it quickly drops down. Have no idea why this is happening, why can't it just stay at 100%?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64
    CPU
    Intel Pentium Dual T3400 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
I'm getting a little desperate here. I dunno what else to do since I don't even have the slightest clue of what might happen.
I installed Win8 last Wednesday and I haven't installed anything weird so far. The problem didn't occur in Win7 though.

Do you guys think a reinstall might work?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64
    CPU
    Intel Pentium Dual T3400 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
Sounds to me like your CPU is throttling down for some reason, which would likely be because of it overheating. According to your system specs, I'm assuming you're using a laptop. If you're able to, go into your BIOS (usually by pressing 'Del' or some Function key like F1, F2, etc.) and see if you're able to find something related to 'Thermal Throttling', 'Speedstep' or 'C1E'. If you do see something like that, write it down, do some quick research on Google regarding what it does and what it's used for, then make changes appropriately. Also make sure to clean out any exhaust vents and if you're comfortable doing so clean the inside of your laptop with some compressed air.

If however that's not the case, then I'm not sure.

Good luck.

EDIT > It's good practice to monitor your CPU temperature from time to time. Some good software for that would be RealTemp (only for Intel CPU's), CoreTemp (both Intel and AMD CPU's), AIDA64, and Speccy (from the same company that makes Defraggler and CCleaner).

EDIT 2 > According to Intel, your CPU's max temperature threshold is 100C, so anything above 80C should definitely scare you.
Link for reference: ARK | Intel® Pentium® Processor T3400 (1M Cache, 2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB) Socket P
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    CPU
    Core 2 Duo E7200 (2.53GHz) @ 3.3GHz
    Motherboard
    EVGA 750i SLI FTW (SZ1K BIOS)
    Memory
    4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 @ 933MHz (5-6-6-22)
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI GTX 460 SE v2 1GB
    Sound Card
    Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium (PCI-E)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ASUS VH202T-P [ 20" ]
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
    Seagate Barracuda 120GB ATA-100
    PSU
    Antec EA-750 (750W)
    Case
    NZXT Tempest
    Cooling
    Stock
    Keyboard
    Logitech K350
    Mouse
    Logitech MK510
    Internet Speed
    12Mb/s down - 4Mb/s up
Sorry about late answer. My charger died on me and the ones they sell on shops are super expensive so I had to order one online. Anyway, you say something about 80ºC should scare me? Then I'm completely frightened!

2kGqX.png


The 93ºC was when I was watching a movie.

This means something is really wrong with my computer. I'll look up with the BIOS stuff, don't have much experience it but shouldn't be too hard... right? About opening my laptop... I'm not really that comfortable with it, but if it is something I must to then I'll do it. Some pointers would work wonders, though!

EDIT:
I tried having that open while watching YT vids and noticed something that happened with the breaks happened:

AIzJh.png


Anyone knows what that "Clock Modulation" thing means? It only appears in the breaks!
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64
    CPU
    Intel Pentium Dual T3400 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
So I guess it really was a problem of overheating. After pumping some air through the air vents it really got a lot better. I guess doing a better clean up inside might even make it better. Guess that solves the mystery, thanks for the help!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro 64
    CPU
    Intel Pentium Dual T3400 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series
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