Seeking the source of a problem: Card or Connection

Background on my system: LG R500 laptop. core 2 dual core 2.0 2 gigs ram Nvidia 8600 gs card. This should be more than enough to run GW really well. For most of the life of this laptop it did run GW really well.

Problem: The Latop has broken down on many occasions. 3 Hard disk replacements, 1 motherboard failure, 1 video card replacement. Long story short this laptop has been a nightmare. Thankfully all under warranty. BUT, after each replacement the game has gone back to running very well EXCEPT for the last one. Recently I had to have the video card replaced. I got the system back on Wednesday. The game has been running very poorly ever since then. The system also makes a louder whirring noise than it even did (used to run quiet).

First, I've had to turn the graphics settings down in game to get decent performance of any kind. Second, the game will suddenly just nosedive on FPS to like 5 or 6 making it unplayable even once I've done this.

I'm using the same internet connection which has been fine for a long time and was fine before the system needed the card replaced.

This might be obvious but I'd like some opinions before I have to go through the enormous pain of going back to the store again. Is this likely a problem with the replacement card or something that sounds like it has to do with the connection or something to do with servers.

Thanks for the input.

Did they replace the "card" with the same type as before? It sounds like they either down graded your graphics chip, or they boinked the heatsink/fan on it (the noise).

definately sounds like the card. I would make sure your drivers are up to date before going through the hassel of getting it fixed again though.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
let it automatically check what kind of card you have. If you have a different card it will tell you and either way your drivers probably needed updating.