WoW only runs smoothly when laptop is connected to monitor

I have been playing WoW with a laptop. I use an external monitor most of the time. So far, the game has been running smoothly. However, a week ago, as I was away from my external monitor, I noticed that WoW runs “slow”, like with low fps, low refresh rate. I don’t know how to explain it, but it doesn’t runs smoothly. Despite that, the computer seems to be running as stable and fast as usual, but WoW graphics look very slow. That shocked me because the issue totally disappears as soon as I plug back the external monitor. So, I guess it’s not a hardware issue because it runs perfectly when the external monitor is plugged.

To the above, I would like to add a detail. Today I noticed that if I start the game without the external monitor connected, WoW starts running glitchy. If after I have started the game in a faulty way I connect the external monitor, the game still displays in a faulty way. However, if I start the game with the external monitor connected, the game runs smoothly. If after having started the game smoothyly I disconnect the external monitor, the game still runs great on the laptop. I don’t know how to fix this problem so that the game runs fine without connecting the external monitor.

Btw, I have tried to change in-game graphic card detection settings, but as soon as I try it, the game freezes and then closes withouth saving settings changes.

Check your power plan settings and set it to high performance. It’s possible that plugging in the monitor is forcing the clock speeds to remain high, which is doing essentially the same(keeping the clock speeds from being all over the place and going into more energy efficient levels). Also, in your Nvidia settings, there is an option for GPU power, setting it to prefer max will keep the clocks high as well.

It is possible and very likely the external monitor is a lower resolution then the laptops monitor. The most common monitor is is 1080P while a lot of laptops have QHD displays or greater. Would not know for sure without the make and model of the laptop and the make and model of the display

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