Homebuilt desktop vs. laptop, fps issues

[alcatraz]

I've had my home built system for about 9 months now and really haven't had any reason to complain until last night (finally diagnosed failing psu.) The one gripe I have is that it doesn't perform as well as it should while gaming (yes, the game is WoW, please don't shoot me.) I get 20-25fps in heavily populated areas. Today, after diagnosing the aforementioned psu I logged on to play on my laptop and was getting the same fps despite my laptop having a less than stellar line-up of components. My desktop specs are:

Phenom II x3 720 BE @ 2.8g
DDR3 1333 4gig
Gigabyte 770 mobo
HIS 4870 1gig
WD 640gig 7200rpm HDD
Win 7

My laptop specs:
Asus X83V
Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.0
DDR2 4gigs
Asus mobo (assumption, but probably a safe one)
GeForce 9300M GS
Vista

 

[rolli59]

Maybe a difference in resolution or in game settings creates this outcome.

 

[alcatraz]

The settings were the same on both. I do routine maintenance on my desktop (virus scan, spyware scan, updates, defrag, etc.) so that's not it. I have the latest drivers for the desktop. What am a missing?

I've read conflicting stories on whether or not your connection can affect your fps. Some say yes, some say no. My connection out here in the boonies is through Centurytel (aka Centurylink/Embarq) and is just to the left of horrible. Downstream line attenuation tends to run at 50+.