Victoriousness

Whenever I'm doing something like streaming a video online or playing a game by myself, I get a very smooth, lag-free performance for the first ten minutes and then it gets very slow and choppy for the next five minutes. But if I just wait, it goes back to completely normal and smooth. At first I thought it was the internet, but even when the stream is fully loaded, it still does this. Interesting enough, video files that are actually on my hard drive rarely experience this problem. Lately what's been bothering me most is when I play Civ4 and it goes through these cycles. I know my computer can handle the graphics and game, because it runs like a dream for the first ten minutes.

I've asked family and friends and my brother told me that it might be because my laptop is overheating. It would seem to make sense if the video card were getting too hot and needed to cooldown for five minutes, but since I've never heard of this happening ever, I'm skeptical.

Windows XP Pro SP2
Dell Inspiron E1505
Intel Core 2 Duo with 1.83GHz
2GB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400

Thanks for any help that you can provide.

TriggerFinger

as your problem only happens after the first 10 mins during online and/or local, then may be they are right. just for curiosity's sake get SpeedFan or NHC to take the temps. observe how high the temps get and if you experience the lag during those times (this may require a lot of patience )