framerate drop after about 4 minutes of gameplay

[dsectric]

Ok, starting today I've been having a weird issue when playing games (thought most specifically Bad Company 2, since the other games I play are older and less affected).

After about 4 minutes of playing the game at my normal framerate of about 30-50 fps, the framerate will suddenly drop and stay at around 15-25 fps.

I thought it might be overheating but HWmonitor reports both CPU cores at around 59c when this happens ( ~49 while idle), and the GPU at around 46c (~39c while idle). These are not very low temperatures but they are the same temperatures at which I was playing normally for the last 3 weeks.

The other cause can be the RAM, but how would I go about testing this?

My specs are as follows:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000+ @ 3.1ghz
RAM: A-Data 2048 (2x1GB) DDR2 800
GPU: EVGA GTS 250 1024MB

 

[Devilpapaya]

I'd first give the computer a good air-dusting (if you don't have any you can pick it up at target or walmart, or online if you feel like waiting) Just to make sure its not a heating thing.

If you want to test the RAM you can do that from the repair console in 7 (hit f8 on boot, should be first option) Its not a a great memory tester but it is built in. To be honest though this doesn't sound that much like a RAM issue.

Also, check for background processes running when the framerate drops (ctl-shift-escape to bring up task manager, then go to processes tab) sort by memory usage and cpu usage and see what is using up your system resources.

Also, how long does it take to go back to normal if you exit the game? If you quit the program then reopen it right away does the problem still exist?