Random lag spike(s)?

[Stone]

Alright so, here's the thing.

Sometimes when I play Skyrim I can play it for ages without lag spikes and I've had a fun game. Other times when I play it, after every 10 minutes or so I get this lag spike that lasts for around 2 minutes.

It's highly frustrating as it happens more than running smoothly. It never used to do this either.

I run on Ultra, shadow details are on low. (because I found that increases FPS futher)

I have 8GB RAM, my processor is a dual-core running at 3.4GHz and I have a Radeon HD 6790.

Any ideas on what's causing the problem? I'm thinking it could be that my graphics card is over-heating, but it shouldn't be the case because this doesn't happen on any other game.

 

[tragik]

Stone, one thing you can try if you suspect overheating issues is run a stress test on your CPU/memory/graphics card. If it can handle the stress test then overheating is not your issue. I would also check (if you can) and see what your RAM and CPU are doing during these 2 minute spikes.