[Adrenalineflash]

After a few months of use, my laptop (Yes, I've heard it all, not ideal for gaming) has ran Valve games (such as TF2) without problems, usually on higher settings. Recently, however, I've been experiencing slowdowns in framerate. Although it could be a heat problem, both my partitions are a bit under 75% full each.

Will this hard drive space affect performance?

I also get suggestions to use a can of air to blow the exhausts clean, however, why does that help? Doesnt that just move the dust back into the computer?

[burnthepc]

What size are your partitions? And how much ram do you have?

I wouldn't have thought the swap file size (virtual memory section of the disk) would cause that much trouble. If you are heavily using the hard drive (as virtual memory) to play games I wouldn't have thought that you'd say it used to run fine. That said, if you have less than 1gb free on a given partition it could be causing some issues.

Heat problems can cause some issues. But those are usually indicated by other symptoms such as crashing, power-downs and strange artifacts (dots) on the screen. Anything like that happening?

Have you perhaps installed something lately that is eating memory? Any new icons in the bottom right of Windows (by the clock?)

[Adrenalineflash]

Both partitions are about 180gb each. I have defragmented them many times, and ran virus scans in the past.

I have 4gb of RAM on a Video card with 512mb of dedicated video memory.

I'm not getting any of that stuff there that you described with heat issues. My issue is that it runs fine at about 50-60fps for about 10 seconds to a few minutes before slowing down heavily to under 15fps. Then it returns to normal only to slow down once again.

I usually close everything in the bottom right before gaming. Right now the only non-driver is Steam, which is necessary. I assume msconfig will help in this situation?

[Hoonos]

Ditto on the problem
Ditto on the specs
In fact, if your running a toshiba quosmio, and having the issue with steam games too, you might just be me...

Although in my case, one hardrive is about 5% full and the other is about 60%. I only bought this laptop a couple of weeks ago and until about 3 days ago, it was running fine.

[Adrenalineflash]

Nah, I'm running an HP Pavilion Dv5, and this is after months of use. Are you using it on a soft surface?

I'm pretty sure this is a heat issue, but if it can be helped on the hard drive end, it would be easier for me.

[Hoonos]

Strangely enough, it was the time I placed the comp on a rug which was when it all began. At the time I was fairly sure it was heat that may have caused it, despite it not feeling too hot when i felt it with my hand. But even still, thereafter i have been using hard wood surfaces yet it doesn't seem to help.

If it has anything to do with heat, it may be permanantly damaged, but I can't really be sure of that. A friend (who has the same laptop as I), said he had the same problem and 10 minutes on his glass desk sorted the problem out.

[burnthepc]

Originally Posted by Adrenalineflash

Both partitions are about 180gb each. I have defragmented them many times, and ran virus scans in the past.

How much is free on each partition though? The rest of your post makes it sound like it's not a memory issue. 4GB ram + 512mb graphics should be fine. But just to rule it out.

If you want to check temperatures for your system, Everest from http://www.lavalys.com/ has a good set of features in their free version. You should be able to check and log the CPU temperature over a gaming session and see if the dips in performance start when the CPU hits a temp level.