Laptop issues
 

So I just did a factory restore on my Laptop to clear all the shit off of it, now it runs like garbage. When I play WoW it will run great for about 10 minutes, then drop to 4fps and run incredible slow, it will speed up again, but drop down in FPS again shortly after. It continues this cycle as long as I play.

The same will happen if I'm just browsing the internet, the computer will get major slow-downs, and not be able to play a movie, then it will speed back up and repeat over and over.

Any suggestions on how to fix this? Computer is a Dell XPS M1330, Yes the laptop does have alot of problems.

Uninstall anything you don't need, especially Symantec. Dell installs an unbelievable amount of crap on their systems.

I'm pretty sure I uninstalled everything that came with it, but I'll give it a double check. I've updated my display drivers and BIOS as well, so not to sure what else to try if this doesn't work.

Disable indexing for Vista.

The M1330 does have that defective nvidia chipset but I believe it'll do more than that if it's bad.

^
Yup, I've had it repaired for that already, so I know the symptoms. Indexing was already disabled as well. I'm un-installing everything non-essential right now, so will post back if it fixes it or not.

Cleared off everything non-essential, made sure Indexing was off, still gets performance spikes. Any other suggestions?

Updated drivers ?
Updated Vista including service packs ?
Have you tried switching your power scheme to high performance mode (click battery icon in bottom-right corner) ?

Download FileMon and see what processes are accessing the hard drive.

Download a software called Dell Inspiron/Latitude/Precision fan control V3.1.

It's a tool to monitor the temperature and manually control the fan speed. Your GPU and CPU may very well be overheating after 10 minutes of WoW.

When you say you got the GPU fixed, did they replace the thermopaste for the GPU and CPU or did they just replace the motherboard? Once I got my mobo replaced and the guy used the same heatsink and fan and same thermopaste, needless to say, the laptop was overheating even when idling when the thermopaste couldn't make a proper contact with the GPU and CPU (idling around 70 degrees Celsius or 65-67 with high fan speed). I had to ask them to come again to replace the mobo with new HSF and thermopaste. (now idling at only 45 degrees Celsius with high fan speed) I got a M1210, the predecessor of your 1330, that's kinda what happens when they pack so much heat in a little computer.

Go download that program, check the temperature, and see if you want to have a Dell tech to replace everything for you again... having the GPU and CPU go thru this huge range of heat cycles made my M1210 crap out in 2 years.