substep

Hey everyone, I am in need of some help here. I apologize in advance if I put this in the wrong section. A cousin of mine recently gave me his "old" gaming laptop, an Alienware m9700. I play World of Warcraft mostly on this machine, along with some first person shooters such as Counter Strike etc on the side. The issue I am having with this laptop is running WoW smoothly and consistently. In-game I am barely getting any FPS and am always spiking. And due to some of the more demanding aspects of the game, I am unable to play (getting single digit frames per second).

Unfortunately my computer tech knowledge is basic so I have come here for some help. What components of this machine would benefit from an upgrade to run applications such as WoW optimally? My guess would be a better CPU? More ram?

Specs:
Vista Home Premium (32bit)
AMD Turion (tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-34 1.80GHz
2.00GB ram
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900GS
ST910021AS ATA 90GB HD
Optiarc DVD RW AD-5540A ATA DVD/CD Drive

My goal is to play in deeper/advanced content within the game, however the lack of performance is making that difficult. Thanks in advance.

daisymtc

I don't think you can upgrade graphic card.

You could probably upgrade RAM and CPU...

2048Megabytes

I doubt he could upgrade the processor. Likely he could upgrade his RAM but I don't think it would make much of a difference. You can't upgrade much on laptop computers.

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Operating Systems: Linux Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows Vista
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Memory: Super Talent PC2-6400 2 gigabytes
Processor: Phenom 9550 Quad-Core (2.2 gigahertz)

CardboardSword

Laptops aren't really meant for gaming. Alienware or no. It might be worthwhile to make sure it isn't overheating and all drivers are up to date. CS:S isn't exactly a demanding game, and wow isn't either. Download Speedfan and check nVidia's site for driver updates. Try running the games on lower settings as well, if they aren't already at their lowest.

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