Resolved - Choppy Game

[Captain Giraffe BAR]

Name: S. Martinez

Rank: Pfc.

Type of issue: Maybe steam? Not sure

Brief Description of Issue: In the last three days every time I get on DoDs my fan starts making a bunch of noise and inevitably the game gets choppy. By choopy I mean that it skips frames and the audio clips in and out randomly, as if I were lagging. I don't think it's a connection issue because the same thing happens when I created a game and tested it by myself, and the problem persisted when I went back to my parents house (who have a faster connection than I do). I tried re-installing the game, as well as reducing all the graphics setting to their lowest possible point. I don't think it's a space issue either because I've got 20 gigs free on my HD, which is more than I've ever had in the past. I also tried cleaning out my demos in the DoDs folder itself.

I use (and have been using the whole time I've been in the unit) a 13" 2009 Macbook Pro, running Snow Leopard v8.

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz

Number Of Processors: 1

Total Number Of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

***Medical Supply Staff ONLY Below this line***

Current Status: Resolved

Main Technician: Pfc. Holland

Supporting Technician:

Edited April 22, 2012 by Holland 1st MRB

[Holland 1st MRB]

First thing you should check is if your computer is cooling properly. You have given the perfect description and outcome of a very dusty computer.

Make sure the computer is completely powered down.

Blow out your fans, clear the computer of as much dust as you can. You should do this ideally with compressed air, though a vacuum will suffice if you are gentle.

Carefully take the cover off of the computer, blow that out as well. Be sure you are not contacting any of the wiring or components as a precaution. Start it up again, and try it.

Laptops collectively tend to over-heat if left on indefinitely over long periods of time (even in sleep or power save mode). Be sure that if you are not going to be using your computer (IE. while you sleep), that you are allowing it to cool down properly via turning it off.

Please post back informing us if this has helped the problem.

EDIT: As well, be sure you aren't making any attempts to overclock your hardware.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Holland 1st MRB

[Captain Giraffe BAR]

The problem went away with the steam update. Figured it had something to do with that.

[Holland 1st MRB]

Well, good to hear it was resolved.

Occasionally on some PC setups, Steam has been known to take up 50% of a core, and would have been my second suggestion to you.

If it happens again, try this;

-Shut down Steam (Completely, from the task menu as well)

-Go to your Steam install folder

-Delete Steam.dll

-Restart Steam

If that does not work, repeat the steps, but delete clientregistry.blob instead.

This has been a reported fix for similar problems that claim to be caused by Steam itself.