I have a good laptop that's only 1.5 yrs old, but no dedicated video card. Is there any chance I can play Skyrim on this? My other option is spending hundreds of dollars on a new laptop.
Hp Pavilion dv6
Windows 7
Intel Core i5 2.27Ghz
4GB RAM
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (video RAM 1.7GB, pixel shader 4.0, vertex shader 4.0) - that's what the anolysis said from the "Can You Run It?" for the video card.

I've got a fully loaded laptop with a 1.7gh i7 quad processor with hyper-threading. 8 gigs of memory. A GT240M processor with 4gigs dedicated memory, and exceeds all the shader requirements. Regardless, this game just chugs. Even on the lowest setting. It's pathetic.

I really hate these bastards.

There's been a Master thread running for the past month you should have asked about the game in. An actual graphics card is necessary, as stated in the rather nonsensical System Requirements, and you have none.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1254956-unofficial-will-my-pc-run-skyrim-thread-53-w-hardware-guide/page__st__100