Laptop can't run games as good as it used to, sever fps drops, stuttering. Aspire A315-57G

I noticed severe stuttering in games that ran very smoothly before and did the following:

- Updated/reistalled gpu drivers from Acer website, which didn't fix anything. Did this multiple times with DDU.
- Reinstalled windows 10 cleaning up both drives, so storage wasn't a problem. Installed all the drivers from Acer website.
- Did the thing with disabling non-microsoft services in msconfig, which, again didn't fix anything. And also I noticed msconfig always runs in selective mode with all boxes checked, reverts back to selective when I try to change to normal mode.
- Optimized laptop for max performance in Nvidia control panel. Changed all game exes to use main GPU (Mx330) and not intel IRIS but still nothing.
- Tried to download GPU driver with DriverEasy, which led to no significant result.

I tried to look for old gpu drivers from acer website to no avail (Didn't donwload drivers from Nvidia website, as I've been told not to install them on a laptop).

Acer Aspire A315-57G laptop Intel iris plus i7-1065G7 CPU Nvidia geforce MX330 8gb ram (2gb Vram)

I finished Witcher 3 two times on this laptop and now even Skyrim can't run without lagging severly so much, it's unplayable. Please help.

Thread was edited to add model name to the title

Accepted answers

JackE

If you have used it mostly for gaming or other heavy power demand applications like videos or imaging software, then yes it should probably be re-pasted since the factory paste is probably dried out by now. This should be considered normal maintenance.

You should first check CPU and GPU temperatures with freeware temperature monitors like CoreTemp or HWMonitor when a game starts stuttering. If either CPU or GPU temps are above about 85*C when this stuttering happens, then the you should have the work done.

All comments

AnhEZ28

Try checking the temperature of both CPU and GPU when play games by using MSI Afterburner. You can update driver from Nvidia website. There is no problem with it.

JackE

>>>Reinstalled windows 10 cleaning up both drives, so storage wasn't a problem. Installed all the drivers from Acer website.>>>

Sorry. First two things you should've tried is re-setting the mainboard via the pinhole method. Then if that didn't work. re-installing the original factory installed Windows OEM version from the hidden recovery partition. Many of the OEM system files like dlls are not the same as the Microsoft generic Win10.

Since you've already gone well beyond this point, I'm gonna have to assume that you've got the system & drivers nearly back to the point of a clean OEM system re-install along with updated drivers from the ACER download site. And since it didn't seem to help, I have to ask how often you have opened the machine, cleaned the fan and heatsink and repasted the heatsinks to the processors with a quality paste like Kryonaut or ArcticMX4?

Roja

JackE said:

>>>Reinstalled windows 10 cleaning up both drives, so storage wasn't a problem. Installed all the drivers from Acer website.>>>

Sorry. First two things you should've tried is re-setting the mainboard via the pinhole method. Then if that didn't work. re-installing the original factory installed Windows OEM version from the hidden recovery partition. Many of the OEM system files like dlls are not the same as the Microsoft generic Win10.

Since you've already gone well beyond this point, I'm gonna have to assume that you've got the system & drivers nearly back to the point of a clean OEM system re-install along with updated drivers from the ACER download site. And since it didn't seem to help, I have to ask how often you have opened the machine, cleaned the fan and heatsink and repasted the heatsinks to the processors with a quality paste like Kryonaut or ArcticMX4?

Thanks for the reply.
I have owned this laptop for a year exactly, but have never properly cleaned it, or done what you mentioned with paste, nor do I know how to do that. If you suggest that may be the issue, I'll try to find someone who can do that for me.

Roja

AnhEZ28 said:

Try checking the temperature of both CPU and GPU when play games by using MSI Afterburner. You can update driver from Nvidia website. There is no problem with it.

Hey. I checked them and GPU temp was around 75C most of the time, CPU was 80C. That's not very bad, right?

JackE

If you have used it mostly for gaming or other heavy power demand applications like videos or imaging software, then yes it should probably be re-pasted since the factory paste is probably dried out by now. This should be considered normal maintenance.

You should first check CPU and GPU temperatures with freeware temperature monitors like CoreTemp or HWMonitor when a game starts stuttering. If either CPU or GPU temps are above about 85*C when this stuttering happens, then the you should have the work done.

Roja

JackE said:

If you have used it mostly for gaming or other heavy power demand applications like videos or imaging software, then yes it should probably be re-pasted since the factory paste is probably dried out by now. This should be considered normal maintenance.

You should first check CPU and GPU temperatures with freeware temperature monitors like CoreTemp or HWMonitor when a game starts stuttering. If either CPU or GPU temps are above about 85*C when this stuttering happens, then the you should have the work done.

CPU and GPU don't seem to go over 80C, so I'll just do what you said. Many thanks.

JackE

Are games stuttering when either CPU or nvidia GPU are at 80*C?

Roja

JackE said:

Are games stuttering when either CPU or nvidia GPU are at 80*C?

Yes they are. After loading a game and playing for 2 minutes it starts to lag. CPU hangs around 80C and GPU doesn't reach 80C and is around 75C

JackE

>>>CPU hangs around 80C >>>

Kind of high for the CPU. Do you have any non-M icrosoft virus scanners running in the background.? They can cause issues like this. They're really not needed anymore by most folks especially recent Win10 updates with Microsoft Defender and Malicious Software Removal tool. They should be uninstalled.

Roja

JackE said:

>>>CPU hangs around 80C >>>

Kind of high for the CPU. Do you have any non-M icrosoft virus scanners running in the background.? They can cause issues like this. They're really not needed anymore by most folks especially recent Win10 updates with Microsoft Defender and Malicious Software Removal tool. They should be uninstalled.

I haven't installed any software after reinstalling windows except for MSI afterburner and couple others, but no non-Ms virus scanners.

JackE

>>>I haven't installed any >>> non-Ms virus scanners>>>

Check Control Panel programs anyway because they are often installed by default in some OEM installations.

Roja

JackE said:

>>>I haven't installed any >>> non-Ms virus scanners>>>

Check Control Panel programs anyway because they are often installed by default in some OEM installations.