Solved! Massive screen trembling/shaking and fps drops after few minutes of gaming

[KnorR04]

Hi everyone,

I own an Asus Vivobook S15 S531FL. I sometimes game on it, usually Rocket League, but also other games. The laptop was definitely not designed for gaming, but it should run games like Rocket League pretty smoothly. I will leave the specs down.
The problem is after a couple of minutes into gaming, massive fps drops occur randomly. I start the first Rocket League game, the FPS ranges from 100-120, but after a couple of minutes, it will drop to 10-20fps constant with spikes even of 2-5fps. It looks like the screen is shaking/trembling when these drops happen.
I also checked the temperatures: CPU between 70-80 degrees, GPU between 60-70degrees. I consider these low temperatures for a laptop while gaming but correct me if I'm wrong.

Here is a video filmed with my phone while the problem occurs. The first few seconds it works like a charm, 100+ FPS and then suddenly only 10-20FPS. Link to the screen record
Specs:
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80Ghz (8 CPUs), ~2.0Ghz
Memory: 16GB
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: NVIDIA GeForce MX250 2GB (Dedicated) and Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (Integrated)

What I've already tried:

• Power Plan set to High performance
• Twitching Nvidia Control Panel settings
• Updating Nvidia Drivers
• Searching for Malware (not found)
• Various methods to improve fps
• and a lot of other methods which I can not remember right now...

I understand this laptop is not suitable for gaming, but it should handle a game like Rocket League (all graphics set on all/performance), and it does for a couple of minutes only.
As I mentioned this happens in a lot of other games, but maybe it's worth mentioning that not on Valorant. Valorant is a CPU-intensive game, so I figured the problem might not be the CPU.

I will also try cleaning it and applying new thermal paste, but since the warranty is still available I can't open it.

 

[AlHuneke]

If the temps are low, no need to clean/paste. That often breaks something (just look at the posts in this forum). If you do decide to open your laptop, get the service manual and follow the directions. ESD precautions are especially important. Don't put much faith in videos on you tube. Those are often misleading or wrong.

As far as why, are you looking at both CPU and GPU temps? Once the problem occurs, will restarting the game make it happen again right away or do you need to wait a few minutes. Are you running on external power with the original power adapter? I'm not a gamer, so I can't advise on game settings, but I assume you have messed with both those and the GPU settings.

One other thought--are there any background programs that might kick in and slow things down? Watch the task manager to see if something is hogging the CPU/GPU.

 

[KnorR04]

If the temps are low, no need to clean/paste. That often breaks something (just look at the posts in this forum). If you do decide to open your laptop, get the service manual and follow the directions. ESD precautions are especially important. Don't put much faith in videos on you tube. Those are often misleading or wrong.

As far as why, are you looking at both CPU and GPU temps? Once the problem occurs, will restarting the game make it happen again right away or do you need to wait a few minutes. Are you running on external power with the original power adapter? I'm not a gamer, so I can't advise on game settings, but I assume you have messed with both those and the GPU settings.

One other thought--are there any background programs that might kick in and slow things down? Watch the task manager to see if something is hogging the CPU/GPU.

Hi AllHuneke,

Just thought it might need some cleaning because it's more than 2 years since I have it already, but I agree with you on the paste, maybe it might not be the case since the temps are not that high.

After restarting the game same situation as before, I have to play the game for like 2 min only and the drops will kick in.
I am playing with the laptop plugged in with the original power adapter. Yes, I have already messed with the GPU settings (Nvidia Control Panel Settings in this case) and with the In-game settings already. These only improve FPS for the first part, when the game runs smoothly.

I will also try checking for mysterious background apps and will come back to you.