Bad laptop? or bad software?

Hello, I have had my Alienware m14x for about a year now, I bought it from ebay in the box was the laptop and the charger nothing elce, So because of that i do not have my Alienware resource dvd so this leads me to my topic. My Alienware has been getting really bad performance, Not so much not getting high frame rates but dropping frame rates every 20 secconds. For example I could be playing on Battlefield 3 and running about 60 fps on low settings, all of a sudden i will get a drop to about 5 fps then back to 60. This is happening on every game i play, Im not sure if its a hardware problem or if my software is a bit screwed up. Now a few months back i reinstalled windows using the regular windows disk and re installed all the drivers from the dell website, ever since then its not been as fast as since i got it. (Reason for first reinstall i got a virus) So now im wondering if i need to somehow get a resource dvd or even a new computer.

Please respond would help a lot.

 

Have you looked what temps you are getting while gaming? It is possible that the gpu is throttling because it is getting too hot.

If it isn't temps, I would probably say software. How well have you kept with driver releases? I would uninstall your current driver and install the newest/stable one.

Would give you links, but I'm on my phone.
Sent from my SGH-T999

 

I will check my temps, Do you recommend any type or stress test program or benchmark program that records temps as well as results?

 

I'm am not aware of one that does both. Alien autopsy has a video stress test, but I have never used it.

Sent from my SGH-T999

 

Here is the troubleshooting that you should try.