Help Lag Problems Makes No Sense!

ive been getting into pc gaming lately because i do not yet have a ps3 and still want to play the latest games. the one problem is the terrible lag some higher-end games cause. especially in portal 2 and mirror's edge. i have a toshiba satellite L305 from september 2009 with an intel celeron 2.2 ghz processor 2 gb ram with 1.87 gb available and have an experience index of 3.3, but my games lag to the point where they are almost unplayable, according to the stats i should have minor to medium lag but this is lagging like a full-up 2002 desktop computer. i also have a minor cpu usage in general about 30% average but every few seconds it spikes to almost 100 percent. i run windows 7 home premium and my c driv is only about half full, maybe a little more.

can anyone help?

i dont want to have to get new graphics cards or processors but i do need to figure out how to reduce lag in general

ive tried boosting programs with only slight increases

ive tried closing my processes

oh, and i also run these games through valve's steam online store

ive tried updating my drivers

i dont know what else to do

 

Hi beastOmatic and welcome!

There are a number of different models of the L305 but, in the end, it simply is not a gaming machine. I do not know what the requirements for the games you are trying but there seems to be very little that you can do to up the specs of the machine. You may try adding a bit more RAM and I doubt that 1.87 gb represents what you think it does. For example I am using 1.13 gb of Ram and am doing nothing more than typing this on a higher spec Toshiba laptop.

You may also want to take a look at your page file settings (virtual memory) and set it manually to 1.5 times your RAM. I doubt, however, that will make the difference.

 

thank you so much everyone for all your help! im hopefully getting a new processor soon
probably an i5, do you guys think i might also need to have another graphics card installed like a geforce or something?

what processors do you recommend?

also i have been having trouble installing an old game for the pc called sim theme park. everytime the installer opens i see the weird loading screen with the guy with his tongue nsticking out, and then that screen dissapears and nothing happens, i tried installing this on an xp machine and then transferiing it to my laptop but when i try to run the game the same thing happens, any ideas? if i can just get it to install i can download fixes, and no cd cracks as long as i can get the damned thing to install. help?

 

Because this is a laptop you are probably going to have to speak to Sony and find out if there is a MOBO upgrade for this computer. Unlike a desktop, laptop motherboards are designed to fit a specific case. There are guides to taking apart laptops but you will need to feel comfortable doing it.

If you have to buy the Motherboard from Toshiba and then buy the new CPU you may find that it is not a very cost effective idea. Add to that the fact that if your copy of Windows was preinstalled by Toshiba it may not work with a new MOBO.