Novice looking to boost system, any help?

[Ninja.Zero]

Hey guys I'm new to the whole computing thing, anyway my issue I have is with my laptop Asus XG71gx, I got it for gaming and well it is lackluster at best. Theoretically it should be able to run say Starcraft 2 with no issues what so ever but when I change the specs on the game from anything but the minimum the game will lag after about 4-5 minutes. I'm not sure if it is a software problem or an issue with drivers. I'm thinking about starting over fresh with the computer after saving all essential data I don't want to lose so I'm wondering how I could go about doing this. Some added info the laptop gets HOT HOT HOT. It's at times too hot to touch for more than a few seconds. So any help would be great appreciated.

 

[iPwn]

I'm assuming that this laptop is running Windows 7 so, you should have received a restore disk with the system. The Windows 7 installation has been improved from the XP system in the way that, you can install Windows 7 over the existing installation and retain all the data that was on the drive. It will move all of your data into a Windows.old folder that you can access from the new installation. As for the laptop getting hot, is this a new laptop? I would recommend one of those laptop fan attachments that sits underneath the laptop to cool it. If it's a gaming laptop, they do tend to get pretty heated so one of those coolers will help. As for StarCraft 2, it lags for me too at times regardless of the graphic settings so don't stress too much, but 4-5 minutes is excessive. Try a new Windows installation and that may help. What are the specs of your laptop?

 

[Ninja.Zero]

this is what i have

 

[iPwn]

The 17.1" ASUS G71GX-RX05 laptop comes with 2Core 2 P8700 (2.53GHz) processor, 6 GB DDR RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M. This laptop can run Starcraft 2 in the high setting (1360x768)

You shouldn't be getting 4-5 minutes worth of lag with that laptop. I see also that it has Vista, you can reinstall Vista just as you could Windows 7 as I mentioned above and retain your data, just don't format the drive when selecting where to install Vista.

 

[Ninja.Zero]

I'm trying to find the disk. I'm at an apartment and I left the less required items at home of course now that I need them I don't have them -.-

 

[iPwn]

Not to laugh at your misfortune, but I lol'd. I hate it when that happens. There's nothing illegal about borrowing the same version of Windows that you have a license for on the bottom of your laptop though, so if you happen to have a friend/relative with the same version of Windows and they have an installation disk... no harm no foul.

 

[Ninja.Zero]

I opened the back of my computer and blew some air on the fan it was basically clogged with dust (oops not letting that happen again.) but then windows offered some advice for speeding up my system so I cleaned out the programs I didn't use and so far everything is running much better, I've gotten up to high settings on Starcraft 2 which is such a huge difference