Games used to run nicely, now they don't?RESOLVED

[mechanicalsonata]

My computer fell victim to the 'shutting down when overheated' dealio, so I fixed that by spritzing some compressed air-in-a-can into the vents and fan area. Laptop works nicely now! It's not overheating and everything else is running better than before!... Except all of my games. Now, prior to this, all of my PC games were working fine (I play Team Fortress 2 most of the time, if that helps in any way). After I was done cleaning it, I went into TF2 and its frame rates were lagging, even when I wasn't on an online server. Even games like Shovel Knight and SCP Containment Breach had terrible frame rates. In SCP, it shows your frame rate, and it said it was running from 3-5 fps. Normally it runs 30-50 fps, which is just fine in my opinion and for what I expect from my laptop.

I have tried changing my laptop's battery (I did change it back to my original, for the original battery still works fine), cleared the temp files, uninstalled uneeded software and programs, lowered all graphics in the games, ran the games(well, TF2 at least) in DirectX8.1, shutting the laptop down and turning it on again, used the program CCleaner, tried out Razer Game Booster, uninstalled and reinstalled a game (I did this with the SCP game. fps in that game still ran at 2-5 fps) and I set my power plan to High Performance. Nothing has worked so far, and the only ideas I have left are to reset my laptop to factory settings and, something I really do not want to do, go into my computer's build to see if of the parts have something in/on them/if any wires are loose or something. I'd rather not take the laptop in for fear of having files stolen or get an overpriced bill. But, I guess if it comes down to it, I'll take it in.

My specs-
Processor: AMD A8-4500M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics, 1.90 GHz.
RAM: 6.00 GB (5.46 GB of it is usable)
64-bit Operating System
This is an HP ENVY dv6 laptop. I got this laptop in 2012. The laptop runs Windows 8.

Again, prior to cleaning out the vents and fan, all of my games were working just fine, at a regular and (in my opinion) nice 30-50 fps. The only times the frame rate would drop were due to internet connection or just a lot of stuff happening in the game at once. Which, in my experience, is rather common.
(When you give help, I wouldn't mind either some step-by-step explanations or easy words. I'm not much of a tech savvy person-- my apologies.)

Thank you in advance!

EDIT - Resetting my laptop worked. Everyone can go home now. Thank you.

 

[digitaldoc]

How did we know it was overheating before, and it is no longer doing that?

Try running HWInfo and seeing what temps you are getting for the CPU and the GPU.

http://www.hwinfo.com/

 

[mechanicalsonata]

How did we know it was overheating before, and it is no longer doing that?

Try running HWInfo and seeing what temps you are getting for the CPU and the GPU.

http://www.hwinfo.com/

Well, considering the laptop was getting unbearably hot underneath and the vents were barely blowing out air, it's safe to assume that it was, indeed, overheating. I'll still look at that software just to be safe.

 

[James Mason]

overheating your system can permanently damage it, so that may be the case here.

 

[digitaldoc]

Sounds like a baked system.

 

[mechanicalsonata]

overheating your system can permanently damage it, so that may be the case here.

It says in my opening statement that my laptop is running better than before, in fact, it's working like it's brand new.

I did just end up resetting my computer and now everything works well again.

 

[mechanicalsonata]

I ended up just resetting the computer. Games work fine now. Only downside about this is that I need to go through the hassle of re-installing my games and tablet drivers. But that's fine.

 

[digitaldoc]

Glad it is working better. Reinstall the software, one at at time to figure out if any of them caused the issue.