WoW locking up on my new laptop (possibly vista?)

I just bought a new laptop, and I get locked up on it from time to time. I might have the settings a bit too high, but I have great components, so I'm wondering why the performance is so bad.

I have:
T7300 2.0ghz 4MB cache proc
8600GT 256MB DDR2 gfx card
1920x1200 display
2GB ram
Vista business

I turn most of the video options on. Symptoms include:

1) A period of freezing when I start the game. It'll lock up, unfreeze, lock up, unfreeze, etc for about a minute or so. Moving around right at the start will make the locks even worse. I'm assuming it's because the graphics are trying to load. I also notice this after my computer has been idle (energy saving mode) before I play.

2) Locking up when spells/effects are done for the first time. When I cast spells for the first time, or when someone else casts around me, I'll get a small lock.

3) When my char is casted on by other chars. PvP is almost impossible for me if someone with magic or special effects is facing me. A mage attacked me and I locked up for probably around 20 seconds or so. By the time I unfroze, I was dead and the mage was well away from my body. When I face warriors/hunters/people with non-graphic attacks I'm fine. Occasionally, monster special effects will lock me up.

4) Flying. Sometimes flight is ok... and I only skip around a bit, but occasionally I'll get very long locking periods.


Other info/ideas:
- On average, I would get about 18-20 fps. I disabled a few options and took AA to 2x and got up to 24 FPS. This was on hellfire peninsula.
- Might be vista. When I get the locking periods ( #1 symptom ) I check task manager and I notice that sometimes windows defender uses decent chunks of the CPU.


Are there tweaks or things that I can do to improve performance? Cache graphic files? disable Vista stuff? tweak the wow client itself? Has anyone else had/solved these problem?

Thanks

 

when i first recieved my t61p wow stuttered and locked a bit with me too...then i noticed a disksweeper (or some other thinkvantage software) was attempting to do a scheduled defragmentation...like every 30 minutes...i uninstalled that software and it runs like a charm...maybe there is some sort of software running in the background that is causing your computer to lock up?

 

There very well might be.. which is why I'm asking.

I'm not very familiar w/Vista, and I know there are lots of new/different things with it.

 

I tried disabling thread optimization, but I still get the errors. Also made sure DMA was on.

Still looking for other ideas....

 

From your discription of your problems I suspect Vista, or more specifically background tasks to be at fault.

To start off follow the Vista optimizing tasks listed in the link below:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3945

After completing the suggestions recommended on there try the game and see what happens. If you still have problems and you have anti-virus, firewall, or anti-spyware programs running on your system try turning them off before you start your game.

 

im running xp and having the same problems

 

Try turning off background disk defrag and system restore. Otherwise its kinda hard to diagnose anything more, are you playing at your native res?

I always found the Blizzard tech support very helpful when finding out problems like this, they ask for your dxdiag file and they do most of the brain bending work.

There could also be connection problems, not just vista. So its probably a good idea to ask tech support.

 

i am (1280x800 W)

 

Try dropping your view distance down. I have mine at haft, but everything eles maxed and getting 40-60FPS depending where I am at on an 8600GT machine O/Ced running vista, and using 1680x1050 resolution.

 

tried it. no dice. any other suggestions?

 

Did you do a clean install of Vista after you got it? I was having lockup problems even browsing the Internet and typing in WordPad, but a clean install seems to have solved it.

edit: A clean install of XP might help, too. It'd at least get rid of all the software that came with the computer that you don't really want.