Windows 7: Help with FPS issue

I messed up trying to update my video driver for my Radeon HD 5870 card and it didn't work out so well. I ended up having to restore my computer, after that my FPS in World of Warcraft was 60 fps where there wasn't alot of players but once in a raid and 25 other people around and lots of graphics if would drop to 15-30 fps i reinstalled the game so it is not any issue with that. I really would like to get back to my 60 fps everywhere and able to record videos, but idk what the deal is with my comp. Ive taken it to micro center and they say they cant find anything told me to restore it and my fps is still bad in high combat situations. Once in a while ill get Vertical skinny lines on my screen and hear a noise thats just annoying then it shows my screen and sometimes stuff is distorted so i just restart my comp and it fixes it. My drivers current date is 8.861.0.0 date is 5/24/2011 and its a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. It would be really great if someone could help me im starting to think i need to buy a new card or maybe something is wrong with my motherboard or something

Best thing you can do is wipe your ati drivers with this
Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper while in Safe Mode

Then download the freshest latest ati driver and catalyst package all at once and reinstall.
From here
ATI Radeon

That should set the driver and it's associated settings straight if they are in fact the problem here.
The problem is the ati uninstall doesn't get everything so you have to use something like driver sweeper to really clean it up.
This is the same thing their tech support would have you do.

If you see garbage display like green lines or dots etc. So try to clean off the dust from the card and plug it back in if it wont help than your GPU is showing symptoms of failing. If it's not under warranty you can use the Baking Trick bake your card in the Oven... trust me i had fixed my 8600GT some years ago.

Ok so after uninstalling and then reinstalling i got in game and after about 2 mins in game my screen went black flickered a couple times then went back to normal but there were a couple blotches that were distorted so i restarted my comp and they are no back to normal is this a sign of anything?

Hm...

Is it being kept cool? Laptops are a lot more heat sensitive than a full-on desktop. Try re-seating the card if you can and see if that helps.

What is RE-seat?

Taking the card out of it's slot and then putting it back in.

I don't know a terrible amount about laptops so I'm basically grasping at straws here.

ATI had notoriously patchy drivers for their 5xxx series cards. I had endless issues with 5xxx series drivers.

IMO, a new driver doesn't necessarily mean better performance than the previous set. ESPECIALLY for 5xxx series.

Do you remember the CAT version (ex 11.1, 11.2 etc) that you last used before updating your drivers? Maybe THAT was your sweet spot for your card. When I was using 5970s, the sweet spot for those were Cat 10.3 and 10.7.

You can download from the archive on ATI's site. Remember to download the MOBILITY drivers.

Also, ATI have a habit of not supporting "older" cards in favor of "newer" cards. ie, they will be focussing on 6xxx performance increases.

Use driver sweeper (aka post #2 above).

Hope this helps and good luck.

I haven't had any driver issues with my card which I bought about a month after they were on the market.
ATI HD5850 XFX

The more I think about this, the more it does sound like overheating vram

Is there anywhere i can look to confirm that i updated my driver?