A quite new laptop lags when playing almost any games

[Actiza]

Hello, I'm actiza. I bought this laptop last Christmas and have been quite happy with it, but I know it must be capable of more. A friend of mine has an older laptop and much worse one but for some reason he has the same/higher fps playing those games than me. Everything should be updated, Nvidia drivers, windows updates etc.
For example, when playing League of Legends at maximum, it says that my FPS is at 40-48 but I can see clearly, how it lags. When lowering the shadow quality, everything becomes fine, but Nvidia experience, sets everything to Very High when optimizing. My battery is plugged in whenever my laptop is working. And it is set to maximum performance.

Problems:
1. Games lag
2. Kind of slow start up in my opinion
3. Performance is way too bad for such a laptop in my opinion.

Laptop info:
Asus N56VZ

I hope you can help me increase my laptop's performance because I'm sure there's something misconfigured.
Also should this be a problem:

Why isn't the laptop display above GT 650M?

 

[Actiza]

I think my BIOS version could be outdated though.
Current is: N56VZ.211, 21.08.2012.
Newest downloadable is: 216 2013.01.09.
But if I need to update it, I need step-by-step instructions on how to, because I'm not really sure how to. I downloaded something called the "WinFlash" from Asus's support site.

 

[Faladu]

2 things as possible bottleneck on that laptop:

2.3Ghz CPU and probably a 5400RPM hard drive. [per specs visit, they sell it with 5400 or 7200RPM HD's]

Specs found here: N56VZ - Notebooks & Ultrabooks - ASUS

BIOS flashing wise follow the instructions Asus provides. [Flashing procedure varies, no one fits all]
Hopefully that Winflash will flash it from within Windows with an immediate reboot after, but they certainly should provide adequate documentation on doing it, no guess work required.
Do write down all your current settings before you flash it, since it will come back with defaults on new bios.

Nvidia driver wise, you may have to fiddle with settings, that laptop might have Optimus technology.
One thread sample on the subject:

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/199457-nvidia-optimus-problems.html

 

[theveterans]

You're using the Intel HD 4000 graphics instead of the 650M while running games. You can try forcing a game to run on the Nvidia by following the screenshot below:

 

[indianacarnie]

You say its a new machine since xmas ...... did you/have you tried any of these tips? They'll help you squeeze out the last drop of performance .
We have many fine tutorials here, written by some very knowledgeable people. Try some of these if you haven't and welcome to the forums! (just click on the link)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html