Question for WoW Players who use the Inspiron 5150

Question

I am getting horrible FPS on World of Warcraft. On a good day, I average 15 - 20 but it is not uncommon for me to get sub 10FPS or 8, 9 FPS. I am running the game on a non-hyperthreaded P4 Dell 5150. The specs on my machine are: Dell 5150 with Windows XP Home SP2 PROCESSOR, 80532, 3.06G, 512K 1.2GB of RAM ATI Mobility 9000 Video Card with 64MB of RAM All the latest drivers from Dell for the video card and hardware Latest DirectX I have tried reinstalling everything including re-installing the Operating system. I have run the tests under DxDiag and I have not found any problems. Concidentally, I also run the game off a 5 year old P4, 1.3Ghz with 768MB of RAM and the game runs fine. The FPS is usually above 25 and often in the 30 to 40 range or higher. The only difference between the two computers is that the 5 year old PC is a Desktop and the video card in the Desktop is only 2 or 3 yeards old. I think it is a GeoForce NVIDIA. I have seen threads talking about heat build-up on the 5150. I have had the PC for a couple of years and never used compressed air to clean out the dust. I will try that when I get home. Does anyone else have any ideas? Is there a way to see how hot a computer is running? What kind of FPS do you get on your machine? Thanks, Bill

tigerwolf7 · Answer

Make sure you're running the newest drivers for your card (not Dell's outdated drivers), and make sure the system is cleaned out. Other than that, the Radeon 9000 is extremly outdated. Worse than a Geforce 3 overall, so you can't expect it to have blazing performance.

bpatters55 · Answer

Will do. Do you know where I can get better drivers than what Dell offers? Thanks, Bill

Leo_s84 · Answer

www.omegadrivers.net

rwm32 · Answer

The dreaded 5150 dust problem may be killing your performance by throttling your CPU to reduce overheating.  Could be worth cleaning out the radiator grille. If it's badly clogged, you'll need to disassemble the 5150 somewhat to get at it. There comes a point where a blast or two of compressed air is no longer enough.   Instructions for disassembly are on Inspiron General H/w board here: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=184349   Note that you may need to remove the palmrest as well in order to get at all of the screws securing the fan unit.

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