Games experience mysterious lag

A little while ago, all my games started lagging. I have no idea why. It began with Warcraft III, continued with City of Heroes. I tried everything possible, updating, fixing, defragging, spybot, adaware, dxdiag, checking everything, disconnecting the router, spending hours on the phone with the support etc etc.

So I formatted. Didn't work that either. "Screw it" I said. And loaded up KOTOR. Lo and behold, the lag had spread outside of the online games!

I turned everything down to the lowest, the resolution, the graphics quality, turned off every extra thing but it didn't work.

I did not have this problem last time I played it on this computer a few months ago. Every now and then, the game just stops, I wait about 10 seconds and it continues. If it is really bad, the computer restarts and blames it on the graphics driver.

See, that is what I think is the problem. There are two drivers for my card that I alternate between: Microsofts standard driver from october 2003, and nVidias offical from 1 april (suspicious, isn't it?). I tried to play C&C Generals, same thing there.

My system specs are:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2.030422-1633)
Language: Swedish (Regional Setting: Swedish)
System Manufacturer: Compaq
System Model: Presario 8575EA
BIOS: 686Y2 v2.11
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.20GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 158MB used, 1092MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0b (4.09.0000.0902)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0902 32bit Unicode

So... can anyone help? Thanks in advance

See, that is what I think is the problem. There are two drivers for my card that I alternate between: Microsofts standard driver from october 2003, and nVidias offical from 1 april (suspicious, isn't it?).

I have noticed that for a few months too and the verdict is that windows update isn't always updated when it comes to drivers. Use the newest ones from Nvidia's website, I've never had problems. What is your video card btw.

If you're games are running slow the only things I can think of would be:

1.) Things tend to run slow when resources are used up. Kill any extra processes (alt+ctrl+delete).

2.) Heating. Generally if you have a heating issue your computer will just crash and restart. I guess it could also slow down programs. I'd make sure your computer isn't burning up.

Actually, heres the process list. Click Here. I just checked all of mine again after like a year, and I found a system process that got installed on my XP machine that is useless on anything other than Windows 9x.

Hello.


I got the exact same computer and the exact same problem.
If you run any application or program and watch the Taskmanager then you will see the file Csrss.exe rising to 100% CPU Usage then it starts to lag/hang.

However I have not yet found a solution to this but I will look at my end and if you find anything out I would appreciate if you let me know and I will do the same to you.


Thanks!

Looks like your low on RAM. 512mb isn't enough for the serious gamer.

Get another 512mb chip. Make sure brand and DIMM number match.

You could also try FreeRAM XP Pro.
It frees up memory from other processes.

An update on the problem (hey, better late than never):

Me my fool took the most obvious conclusion last. I opened up the computer and had a look see inside, noticing to my abysmal horror, that my geforce 4s fan had fallen out! I was thunderstruck! How the **** (not sure if the netherworlds are accepted on this site) can the fan just fall out?! So I poked it back in and tried it again. It worked for a day or two, when the problems came back. I once again opened it and poked it back. 2 days later, same thing.

Now I knew this was never going to be any form of long lasting solution to the problem, but I was completely hooked on KOTOR, and couldn't bear myself to stop playing for a week right when I was so close to the end. So I finished it and all.

But my problem is really solved, I am going to send the computer off to the free support and have them replace the card, but it doesn't matter much since I am getting a new one soon. One with 2 gigs of RAM! Woohoo!

Oh, and thanks for all the help! I genuinely do appreciate it!