My laptop experiences a severe performance drop about every 30 seconds while gaming. The FPS falls to around 10 for roughly five seconds, then returns to normal. It happens in every game I've tested, including Minecraft, OMORI, Stardew Valley, and Mecha Chameleon. My laptop has an AMD Ryzen 7 5825U with Radeon Graphics and integrated AMD Radeon graphics with 496 MB of dedicated memory. The system reports about 15.3 GB of usable RAM. What could be causing these regular lag spikes, and what should I check first?
2 Answers
Because this is integrated graphics, make sure the laptop is plugged in and set to a performance power mode. Also update the AMD graphics driver and check temperatures. If the CPU or GPU gets too hot, the laptop may briefly throttle itself, which can cause repeated FPS drops. Closing overlays and unnecessary startup apps is worth trying too.
The laptop appears to have around 16 GB of RAM, so memory capacity probably isn’t the main issue. Since the stutter happens at regular intervals in every game, check background programs first—especially antivirus scans, cloud syncing, Windows updates, and manufacturer utilities. Open Task Manager while a spike occurs and look for anything suddenly using a lot of CPU, disk, or memory.
The system shows 15.3 GB available, and I’ve noticed the problem in all the games I’ve tried. I’ll check Task Manager during the next spike.
It happens in lighter games as well as Minecraft, so I’ll check the power settings, drivers, and temperatures rather than assuming it’s just the game settings.