Hi Everyone,Okay So I have a pretty decent laptop, Its a DELL INSPIRON 1564, i5 M430 series , 2.27 ghz clock, 4GB ram, Win7+SP1 64bit , HD4330 ATI 512 mb Mobility series (With Catylst drivers from ATI)Well I had to unfortunately reformat my HDD after a corruption and lost most of my data on C: , i.e. FSX was installed on C . Now when I try to play FSX after reinstalling all the drivers, FSX works fine for the first 5 min at runs at 20-25 fps the after 5 minutes it drops to around 2.3-3 fps and the whole computer becomes laggy. Then if I force shut or terminate fsx.exe process , my laptop is just laggy and I have to restart it for it to become the normal state! Please help!Is it something to do with SP1? is anyone facing the same problem? , I just got SP1 just before my HDD got corrupter first so I don't know if thats the problem which if forcing my FSX to slow down .ThanksRahul

Laptops tend to get rather hot, so I wouldn't be surprised if the sustained load on the CPU from FSX was causing the CPU to throttle. Maybe hit the cooling system with some compressed air? That's my first thought anyway.

Clearly the corruption you mentioned has a root cause. I suggest you investigate. Running hard drive and RAM tests would be a good start, and not those weak factory tests either. Do yourself a favor and download Hiren's Boot CD (Google it), burn it to a disk, boot from the disk, and run MHDD and Memtest to test your hard drive and RAM, respectively. If any errors are reported during either test then you have found your culprit. If the system is overheating you may see the system shut down during testing.

That CPU's definitely hitting the temp wall and throttling (I have a laptop and have had this happen, so I know.) Consider jacking up the laptop a few inches and buying a good cooling pad, and also having a fan at the exhaust port PULLING the air out, as well as taking off the shields covering the HDD and RAM will also help with airflow too and keep things a lot cooler (I took the shields off of mine and the HDD temp never got higher than 35C, before it would get into the low/mid 40s C after heavy use.)To view CPU temps and what not use something like HWMonitor. As a general rule with CPU temps in laptops they will throttle around 76-78C [, and for some CPUs even lower.] (A note for desktop users: Mobile processors have a max temp ceiling of 100C.)

That CPU's definitely hitting the temp wall and throttling (I have a laptop and have had this happen, so I know.) Consider jacking up the laptop a few inches and buying a good cooling pad, and also having a fan at the exhaust port PULLING the air out, as well as taking off the shields covering the HDD and RAM will also help with airflow too and keep things a lot cooler (I took the shields off of mine and the HDD temp never got higher than 35C, before it would get into the low/mid 40s C after heavy use.)To view CPU temps and what not use something like HWMonitor. As a general rule with CPU temps in laptops they will throttle around 76-78C [, and for some CPUs even lower.] (A note for desktop users: Mobile processors have a max temp ceiling of 100C.)

Hi,Thanks for the responses!Well It could be overheating but , last Saturday FSX ran smooth throughout (but that day it wasn't so hot outside about 25 degree celcius) .But then again I ran FSX with FSINN, now I think maybe I haven't configured it properly and thats probably whats slowing down the computer So I tried experimenting with another game, and here are the temp. results However I am not having any slowdown/lag after I close the game or during the game process.So maybe its my FSINN? I had to reinstall it after my HDD corruption, and no it was due to a virus attack , no hardware damage at all. I got it checked, also did some extensive tests to find out if the processor and everything runs fine!But once while playing FSX, my laptop suddenly wen off , so again thats another sign of overheating So now I really don't know whats causing it!

And the next image is just after an FSX session (With no lag) , the session lasted for about half an hour temp outside was 31 degree celciusConsidering I didn't start FSINN.So I am confused!

Bingo, there's the culprit: CPU's hitting the temp wall and throttling down to idle clock. Also the Hard Drive temps are rather high; 45C is pushing it (the ideal operating temps for a hard drive are <35C,) and that would explain the sustained perf drop after running FSX. And the GPU temps are pretty high too.Also consider using Game Booster. The programs I'd consider axing would be anything from Dell (particularly any backup managers of any sort,) Side Bar (my CPU temps go down 10 degrees after killing SideBar.exe,) anything from Adobe, Java updater (if running,) any power saver services (you don't 'em when you're running FSX,) and any other programs you know you don't need running. And an important note: Disable Game Booster from minimizing to the tray or starting with Windows, BAR NONE.Also if you haven't: disable automatic updates for Windows.

Bingo, there's the culprit: CPU's hitting the temp wall and throttling down to idle clock. Also the Hard Drive temps are rather high; 45C is pushing it (the ideal operating temps for a hard drive are <35C,) and that would explain the sustained perf drop after running FSX. And the GPU temps are pretty high too.Also consider using Game Booster. The programs I'd consider axing would be anything from Dell (particularly any backup managers of any sort,) Side Bar (my CPU temps go down 10 degrees after killing SideBar.exe,) anything from Adobe, Java updater (if running,) any power saver services (you don't 'em when you're running FSX,) and any other programs you know you don't need running. And an important note: Disable Game Booster from minimizing to the tray or starting with Windows, BAR NONE.Also if you haven't: disable automatic updates for Windows.

Hey,Alright thank you so much. I got the Game Booster as well and installed, works well though I still have to test it on the temps and framerate improvements. FSX works great while just starting it up , it runs at 30 fps straight (occasionally at 28 fps) .Also Just wondering maximum my processor has run is at 21 W isn't that quite low or is it normal for a laptop? I am not really sure!

Laptop processors run at very low wattages, mine has a 30watt TPD and only clocks 2GHz.

Oh and I just got 3DMarkI did a few tests http://3dmark.com/3dm05/5358330 Hope you can tell me something about my system from here!Thanks everyone!Rahul