Performance dips?

So, I was playing Battlefield 3 the other day, I run it at high minus the anti aliasing, and on 720 resolution. Anyways, when it can handle it at 29 fps - 45 fps average. Recently it shifted to 24 - 40 fps. I'm curious what could have started the shift in performance?

I haven't updated the game or any drivers, so it can't be that, and I'm not overclocking. I'm curious what it could be? Any ideas guys?

Thanks in advance!

 

I would get a can of compressed air and clean out your system. I don't think it can throttle such a little amount and doesn't probably make much sense, but before I was having overheating problems so I blowed out the system and my temps dropped by about ~30 degrees (It was like a cat slept in there and then someone tried to put carpet in it, it was crazy), in which games that didn't have temperature problems still ran better than they used to. I don't know why, but the system runs about 5-10fps better in most games, even without any difference, when the temps are lower. Strange right? And it doesnt hurt to try it

 

Sometime doing a restart would also help, because it would reset the temp sensor thus might reset the throttle protocol that build into the CPU. As for me, most of the time, it seem to happen on Valve game especially TF2 and Portal 2. Btw what setting are you? you're playing at 720p and had 29-40 framerate? Because me I play at 900p, medium for most, high for effect and ultra for texture, AA and Motion blur is off, and my avg framerate is between 35-50, oh and I also OC the GPU to 780/1560/1080.

 

What programs have you installed recently? It's probably just a background something hogging a few CPU cycles.