Need some help!

Greetings, everyone. I’ve run into an issue with my PC and I can't quite put my finger on what's gone wrong.
I'm seeing massive drops in my frame rates during gaming sessions. For instance, > used to run smoothly, but now it's stuttering constantly, even after I cranked all the settings down to the absolute minimum. It's the same story with War Thunder. I just installed the latest > drivers today, but it hasn't changed a damn thing.
My current setup consists of > 64-bit, 8GB of RAM, an >, and some Radeon 6700 series graphics card.
What exactly is happening here—is it possible my GPU is losing its edge? Everything else, like streaming video and browsing, seems to be functioning perfectly fine.

Sometimes grabbing the latest drivers isn't actually the smartest move; you often have to dig around for an older version that actually plays nice with your system. But before you go messing with that, just make sure to check your CPU and GPU temps with some monitoring software first...

darkowl72 said:Sometimes the latest drivers aren't actually the smartest move; you often have to hunt down an older version that actually behaves. Before you go chasing software updates, though, you should probably run some diagnostics to check your CPU and GPU temperatures...

The issue is that this instability just started creeping in recently, so I jumped straight to the newest drivers, but that didn't change a thing. Can you recommend a reliable program for monitoring temps?

It just dawned on me that my graphics card fan has completely quit on me. 👎 Is there any actual way to get this fixed right now, or am I just staring at a paperweight?

My two cents—since you’ve already got the case open, why not head over to a local shop that has an air compressor? Give everything a really thorough blast, especially the CPU heatsink and the graphics card. There’s a pretty good chance the GPU cooler is just choked with dust, which would stop the fans from spinning properly. If that doesn't do the trick, though, you might have to actually crack the card open to see if the fan itself is shot...

Larry Ortiz5 said:My advice, since you've already got the case open, find someone with an air compressor and give it a thorough blowout—especially the CPU heatsink and the graphics card. It’s highly likely there’s a massive buildup of dust in the GPU cooler preventing the fans from spinning properly; if that isn't the culprit, you'll have to strip the card down to see if the fan itself has failed.

That is precisely what I did—I pulled the GPU and gave it a deep clean, and it's running now. The rig is about three years old, which makes me wonder if replacing the thermal paste is actually worth the effort. Is it even worth doing at this stage, and where else should I be looking besides the processor?

Sean Ruiz33 said:That’s exactly what I did—pulled the GPU and gave it a deep clean. It's running now. My rig is about three years old... now I'm wondering if it's worth swapping out the thermal paste. Is that actually worth the effort? And where else does it go besides the CPU?

You'll usually find thermal paste right on the CPU and the GPU. If you took the whole heatsink off the card, you probably already saw the chip. Honestly, just swap the paste on the GPU too while you're at it.