First time Alienware consumer, having issues

Hi, I recently bought a refurbished Alienware M11x laptop (for 749), heres what came with it:

-- Alienware TactX Keyboard
-- Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
-- Certified Refurbished
-- 8 Cell Primary Battery
-- Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
-- 11.6 inch High Definition WLED Display (1366x768)
-- Operating System DVD
-- 90W Adapter
-- Processor: Intel Core i5-520M Processor (2.4GHz, 4 Threads,3M cache, turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz)
-- 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
-- 125V Power Cord
-- Alienware AVATAR 1
-- Software
-- Dell Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card
-- Integrated Webcam
-- AUTO-UPDATES,OFF
-- 250 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
-- Microsoft Works 9.0
-- Documentation
-- Label
-- Labels
-- 1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335 M
-- Service Software
-- Windows Live
-- Command Center
-- Image Restore Software
-- Soft Touch Stealth Black
-- 64BIT Operating System DVD

Now I was so excited to play games on it I downloaded Call of duty 4 demo just to test it out and it doesn't run as smoothly, or look as good as I seen on Youtube, so I tried mirrors edge demo and, the same thing, the quality is horrible and the fps is almost frozen.

I'm not good with computers, but I know enough that this laptop should be able to run these games like water. So I run a benchmark test, and it tells me that I'm using Intel(r)hd graphics. So I go to the boot screen and for some reason I am not able to switch the graphics, its not even an option in the boot screen. I was wondering if someone can help me determine.........

1) Is this laptop (based on its specs) able to play games good, without freezing(nevermind maxing out the settings)

2) Is there a way to switch the graphics card?

3) How can I perform a system restore? (Do I have to buy a disk drive)

 

Have a look at the Nvidia Optimus Feature on the M11x R2 - How to add games/applications to whitelist thread.

Seems like you're running on the Integrated GPU instead of the Nvidia 335...

 

Did you read the Thread about Adding games to Optimus so that Nvidia knows that you're playing a game? Its a huge thread, read it bro. It will solve all your problems.

 

Something doesn't seem right! I added the cod4 demo to the nvidia graphics but the steps that was indicated in the youtube video seems different. For example:

When they say "check to see if you have a r2 version" on his laptop it says "alienware m11xr2" mine says "xps m11x r2" (I don't know if that matters or not)

and after he added "nba 2010" to the whitelist, he has the ability to right click the game's icon and choose if he wants to run it by the newly changes nividia graphics or the intergraded one. When I right-click cod4 I don't even have that selection.

So I run the demo, and the excat same performance occurs, slow and chopy.

 

o.k. I set my laptop to always use the graphics card all the time. It works Thanks OblastSRT4 and Rhodan.