I got Skyrim while it was on sale and installed it and it worked okay. I used the default settings for a bit, which had it pegged for high, then reduced the ingame settings (the actor/object fade and the like down to 3 notches above the minimum and then switched down from high to medium and I'm about to go down to low settings. I recently (today) installed SKSE and the SkyBoost mod to try to help as I found out about them recently. According to canyourunit.com and the minimum specs, my computer can handle Skyrim, but, the performance goes to complete unplayable garbage pretty quickly (where before it was just barely above playable). It was doing this before the SKSE/SkyBoost stuff, which is why I tried it today. I also have my computer sitting on a laptop fan to keep it cooler, but I have had my computer shut off (which I believe is due to overheating).

Here are my stats:

Win 7 x64 bit
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 (is #91 on the hardware list thread, so it should run but kind of svck, which I expect, but I really want it to be better than choppy and staggered, slow to load menus, and 10 minute loading screens on average).
Intel Core i& Q720 @ 1.60 GHz
RAM 8 GB

need anything else info wise?

Am I just S.O.L. and need to get a dedicated multimedia tower type PC or is there something more I can do? I obviously try to run as few other programs as possible while playing.

Thanks for any help.

Your GPU is weak, I can tell you that much.

Don't listen to can you run it, it just spurts out utter rubbish.

Your laptop isn't for gaming, I think you know that though. The GPU is weak and the CPU has really low clock speed. Combine these two together, and you end up with the issues you described (slow loading, low FPS). SkyBoost can help for a lot of people, but if both your CPU and GPU are bottlenecks then it's not going to do much.

Plus you described that your PC is overheating, you run the risk of damaging the hardware then. There really isn't anything other than lowering the settings and resolution that will help.

I'm definitely willing to lower the settings, but I mean, if I lower to the lowest pre-set option, is there anything else I can do to further improve performance?

Thanks for the replies, I do appreciate the time.