g50vt lag

So my poor g50vt-X2 seems to have acquired this lag problem over the summer. I started noticing when playing Civilization 4 (NOT a very graphic intensive game), that the game will run perfectly fine for 5 to 10 mins, but then in starts lagging like hell. It's like trying to control the game through molasses. But after another couple minutes it would go away. Then it would come back after another 5 or so mins, and the cycle would keep repeating forever. Because Civ 4 is a turn based game, this didn't really bother me a whole lot for the game was still playable.

But recently I've been trying to replay some of my past favorites, mainly Battlefield 2 and 2142. Both of these game are unplayable because of this issue. I've tried a Neverwinter Nights 2, a game I've never played before; it is unplayable. I've even reinstalled Mirror's Edge to verifiy that it also is unplayable, despite the fact that I beat the game repeatedly in the spring, on this same laptop.

I've reinstalled Vista 2 times, and updated every driver I can think of. It seems as though I'm going to have start what might be a long and arduous RMA process. But I'm wondering if anyone has had the same issues, and if they managed to resolve it?

 

$5 says your notebook is overheating.

 

Sounds like it, but those intervals are short. Dart, when you first start the game, is it five to ten minutes?

I wouldn't think the GPU would hit downclocking temperatures in that short of a time.

 

Try the following:

-Open your laptop and use any dust blowing equipment to clean out the dust out of the heat sink.

 

yeah, i know totally does sounds like an overheating problem. But when I play Neverwinter Nights 2, it doesn't heat up, the computer doesn't even have time too. And I tried running the laptop on a bunch of ice cubes for a crude test, and I still had the same lag issues.

I personally now think it's something like maybe half my VRAM gave out or something to that effect. When talking to tech support, the computer gave a VRAM corruption error on a reboot. A hardware reset "fixed" the immediate issue VRAM corruption error, but i suspect the underlying problem is still there.

Anyways, I'm sending it in with free shipping to and from, and with an average turnaround time 1-2 business days (so tech support told me), maybe I'll get it next week. Or maybe they'll have to replace the mobo, and it'll be couple. That would suck.