Any time I'm playing a game (and even sometimes just using desktop programs), whenever the game accesses the hard drive the graphics freeze. Sometimes the audio stutters, most other times it doesn't.
I cannot figure out what's wrong. The games will run fine for a few seconds, but whenever something loads (i.e. I look at something new), the game will freeze for a few moments and then resume at full-force.
This happens at any point with any game, and is not your regular lag. Some games do so whenever a new model is loaded (or, for instance, when a block is broken in minecraft).
How can I go about debugging this issue?
The laptop isn't that old, and has done this ever since it was purchased. I was using the updated drivers for a while, and then tried the beta drivers with no luck. No overclocking is being done.
Specs:
- Alienware M17xr3
- Windows 7 64-bit
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M
- Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.20 GHz
- 8 GB Ram
The laptop is an Alienware, so the model number is, of course, nowhere to be seen on the bottom. Model number added to specs.
EDIT: As suggested in the comments, here are the temps during both idle and gaming sessions. It should be noted that whenever the freeze occurs, the GPU usage drops to 0.
CPU Min/Max [core 1,2,3,4] : GPU
(All are in degrees Celsius)
- Idle: 56/61, 60/68, 58/69, 52/61 : 62
- Game 1: 63/76, 66/83, 66/83, 62/81 : 66
- Game 2: 56/79, 61/85, 58/84, 54/81 : 66-67
Something else I should add is that the CPU power drops from around 32 watts to less than 15 (often times down to 7) whenever the freeze occurs - however, the programmer in me thinks that it's a side effect of the program itself due to the freeze and not being able to query the CPU.
Another note is that background music plays without interruption during these freezes; the CPU is still doing something when it freezes. Some of the game's sound effects will loop, but not in a soundcard freeze way.