Liv Duff,
A laptop! Heavens, no wonder the speed is slow. I've never been impressed with the naming schemes of either CPUs or gfx
options for laptops, they often used similar brandings to desktop products and yet have nothing to do with them in terms of
performance, no. of CPU cores, RAM capacity, etc.
At the end of the day, Intel HD 4600 is just inherantly slow for gaming (the gfx is done by a module within the main CPU, not
a separate GPU); not much one can do about that. Suffice to say any on-chip gfx from Intel is going to be poor compared to
AMD's options, as AMD have put a lot of effort into making their APUs reasonably respectable in recent years (still nowhere
near desktop GPUs, but not bad at moderate resolutions & detail settings for medium-complexity games).
To get decent performance from a laptop, it really needs to have one of the midrange or better NVIDIA xxxM options, even
an older model, but the problem with those is they're expensive, even 2nd-hand.
Note that if you want a reliable laptop which won't overheat, etc., then get an IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad; built like bricks.
They're not aimed at gaming, though some of the upper end later models have Quadro gfx options which probably aren't
too bad. However, for proper laptop gaming, one likely has to think more of an MSI model or somesuch (MSI's current
gaming laptops scale up the range from GP, through GE and GS, to the GT, in increasing order of speed/cost), but I'm not
familiar with which brands and/or product lines are regarded as reliable by the gaming community.
Re your mother's laptop, the fans may well be faulty, they often clog up with dust. An air duster can could help, or a proper
servicing. I do a cleaning service for 35 UKP, but that's normally for SGI computers.
😀 (for laptops, not practical if you're
outside the UK). Either way, certainly sounds like something is amiss, as it shouldn't be overheating just surfing the net.
Note you can use the free tools called CPU-Z and GPU-Z to obtain detailed CPU/gfx information, download them here (I just
grab the relevant installer exe):
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2452/techpowerup-gpu-z-v0-8-1/mirrors
There are lots of other tools aswell, but these are the most commonly used. You can submit a validation from each
of them to create a URL that's useful for giving to other people who ask for system details, or just grab a screenshot
and save it as a gif (I use the free tool MWSnap to take screenshots, download
here).
Also, try using HWMonitor (another free app, download
here) to see if the systems fans are running as fast as they should be;
crosscheck with manufacturer web site info, web site reviews of the laptop, info posted by other users (Google for example data on
forums sites, etc.), and of course just common sense.
If you want to delve into further details or questions, feel free to PM/email.
Cheers!
Ian.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram