I just bought today a new Alienware laptop to play wow. its running hot, noisy from the fan, only when I play wow. Anything I can do with the settings in game? If not i’ll have to bring it back to best buy…sad puppy 
My Asus was 1,600 dollars and it runs HOT all the time. I’ve narrowed down the main culprit to frames per second.
I’d go back and buy a desktop.
Thats the problem
Laptops will be hot because the way they are, even spending thousands on one
A desktop alternative would be much better and quieter
If it is only doing it in WoW, its likely because you have your framerate uncapped, and the GPU and CPU are breaking their backs to produce frames you aren’t even seeing.
Cap the framerate in the client. See if that clears it up.
thank you that worked perfectly!!!
Yea, I always cap my framerate, no point in stressing components out to display higher then your refresh rate.
Leads to better frame times as well which can actually lead to smoother gameplay.
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Hey Shadow, are you still liking the Alienware laptop? I’m curious how it does in any raids you’ve been in and which model did you get?
Here is some advice, watch probably a dozen reviews, and written reviews on laptops in the price range you’re looking at.
Anyone can shove an rtx 2080 into a laptop, but how many laptops can actually stop it from thermal throttling? Throttling causes performance degradation. Excessive heat can lead to hard ware failure.
I purchased an Alienware laptop back in either 2004 or 2005 and while I never tried I’m pretty sure I could have fried an egg on the touch pad with how hot it got anytime I played a game. Haven’t purchased another “gaming” laptop since then and I always highly recommend a full desktop PC for anyone planning to play PC games.
After only a few years the laptop died, and I’ve always assumed the excessive heat was the cause.
you almost HAVE to have a secondary cooling source with a gaming laptop
There are ways around it because I do game on my laptop. It’s called underclocking and undervolting. Consistent fps > Higher fps w/spikes.
I mean, sure, but then you’re under utilizing the hardware. Better to just try to throw as much cooling as you can at it.
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I hate mine, it disconnects frequently and it’s embarrassing because I could only run WoW on the LOWEST settings possible! Even then it still lags.
These are two separate issues and the first one has absolutely nothing to do with your laptop.
The first issue would resolve around your ISP provider. Unless there’s an actual driver issue with your ethernet card or your Wi-Fi card in which case you probably need to update your drivers.
As for the graphic setting issue and having to play on Lower settings? This is 100% an issue with the laptop and unfortunately there’s probably no way to upgrade the graphics card because it’s most likely soldered to your motherboard.
The problem is with the second issue your laptop graphics card is now barely meets minimum specifications for the game. If you run at higher setting you are going to need to upgrade.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Operating System: Windows® 10 64-bit (latest update)
Processor (CPU): 6 Cores, 4.0 GHz boost clock speed processor (Intel® Core™ Coffee Lake, AMD Ryzen™ Zen 2)
Graphics (GPU): DirectX® 12 capable 4 GB GPU (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 10 series, AMD™ RDNA 1, Intel® Iris® Xe)
Memory (RAM): 8 GB RAMStorage: Solid State Drive (SSD) with at least 128GB of available space
Internet: Broadband internet connection
Resolution: 1280 x 720 minimum display resolution.
Possible fix: Your graphics card on your laptop is not DirectX 12 capable so you can try going under the graphics settings section in the game and setting where it says DirectX 12 to Legacy and see if that fixes anything for you
With that said this isn’t really a fix it’s more of a Band-Aid for your real problem which is your technology on your laptop has hit a wall and you pretty much need to upgrade if you want to run it higher settings. Eventually it won’t run WoW at all as the game gets more demanding