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#11
I can assure you that a 5400RPM HDD is most certainly not the issue here, unless it is not functioning properly. My system has one... runs games like a champ, no stutter/lag/other problems whatsoever and functions just as well as my old system's 7200RPM 80GB HDD did. I can play Crysis and Oblivion on Medium/High settings with the highest possible resolution and all without a single stutter for hours and hours. It's not the HDD. In fact, there's very little actual noticeable difference between the 5400 and 7200 RPM drives (besides on benchmarks).
That said:
Are you sure the game installed correctly? Might be worth attempting a clean install.
Have you checked your Graphics card's driver, is it the latest version? (This can DEFINITELY cause games to severely drop in performance, even result in BSODs - first hand experience there).
Have you tried ending processes in Task Manager that don't need to be running when you're gaming (look them up first, make sure they won't result in off behavior - leave Explorer.exe alone of course [and don't worry, this won't hurt anything, simply restart and they'll come back and stop the odd behavior])? By doing this, I can free up 30% of my CPU and 25% of my RAM usages instantly - makes a HUGE difference!
And, do you disable/stop running "real time" antivirus programs (can really slow things down/mess with games)?
If all of the above has failed to nail this down... have you run any real diagnostic testing on your CPU, RAM and HDD to determine whether or not they're all functioning properly/not the cause of this issue?
Lastly (and perhaps most important of all considering we are talking about a laptop here), have you checked the internal (CPU, HDD etc.) and ambient temps inside your system during gaming? This could also cause a system, a mobile PC especially, to struggle with intensive and resource-heavy processes. I've actually pushed mine into the T-Junction Max to the point where it's shut itself down on me when gaming (after it slowed down the games to the point of crawling). Not good.
Hope this gives you somewhere to start. I'd hold off on buying that expensive SSD until checking out all of the above. Just a few suggestions and I hope you get it resolved. :)
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