Windows XP < Vista

Right, I was using Vista on my desktop PC but i need to do some testing in XP. Anyway, I bought a Nvidia 7600GT 256MB (its actually a Leadtek one) a couple months ago, and everything was great in Vista.

Now I've gone back to XP, my system is so slow its painful. For example, when I open an instance of Firefox which normally appears as a full screen white window, instead, the screen starts filling from the top downwards with the Firefox window, taking about 1.5s to fill the screen. During this process, the mouse pointer freezes.

If I click the Nvidia logo on the start menu (which opens a context menu showing various display options), both displays flicker horribly for a few seconds. Sometimes the primary display goes off completely for 2-3 seconds.

This is unacceptable. I'm at a complete loss as to what to try next. I haven't been able to find a BIOS version higher than AwardBIOS 6.00PG (which is what I'm already using).

I've already tried about four different versions of Forceware. I've tried going to a single monitor which lessens the effect but its still there. I've updated DirectX, I've updated everything that can be updated within Windows. I'm not running SP3 Beta.

Setup as follows:

Athlon XP3000+ @ 2.16GHz
XFX KT600 mainboard
3 x 512MB DDR PC2700 (all identical modules)
Leadtek 7600GT 256MB
WinXP Home + SP2 + all updates
Primary monitor: 21" CRT @ 1280x1024x32
Secondary monitor: 17" TFT @ 1280x1024x32

Dual boot Ubuntu, you should definately try it.

How in the hell can I test stuff under WinXP if I have Ubuntu?

[edit] Don't answer that. I don't want Ubuntu.

Did you use the same hard drive you were using with Vista? If so, it's probably still running the Vista version of NTFS which will muck things up. I'd suggest a complete reformat in that case.

Same hard drive but it was formatted before reinstall.

It'll take more than a reformat if the Partition or drive used to have Vista on it. You have to delete the partition (if there is one) and remake it. This will totally remove Vista's version of NTFS. Do this with the Windows XP installation disk. When it boots up and asks you where to install windows use it's partition/disk tools to remove the partition or fdisk the drive.

That should sort it.

You would have to remove the partition and recreate a ntfs partition using the WinXP installer, reformatting just initialises the ntfs file system for WinXP but the blocks may still hold Vista data.

I'm pretty sure I did all that... although it didn't seem to take long to format, might have done a quick format instead.

I'll reinstall to be sure, not confident though.

In addition, before faffing about. Does the mobo need drivers? Some mobos need the 'Via 4 - In One' drivers. One of those will be an AGP driver - if this is missing then you would get the symptons you have - regardless of graphics card drivers being installed.

Yep it does - I installed all those. :)

Did you do a fresh install of xp? (wipe the hard drive?)

Mmm, probably the hard-drive barings are a bit sticky and are slowing it down. I bet a squirt of washing-up liquid would do the job. Most hard-drives have a round, foil-like, seal - just pop it with a pen end/screwdriver and squirt in a bit of Fairy (or similar). I used to use washing-up liquid to speed up the movement of a Rubik's Cube - works on door hinges too.

I bet he has gone off to find the mobo drivers - I bet he didn't really install those.

I live in awe of puki

Reinstalled everything.... and.... its every bit as crap as it was before.

I hope you didn't install the nVidia drivers offered by Windows Update? They caused similar problems on an old notebook of mine. Don't use nVidia drivers coming from Windows Update. Seriously.

Try the following, and in that order:

Uninstall any graphics drivers.
Reboot (in default VGA mode).
Delete all nVidia driver leftovers.
Since this is Windows: REBOOT AGAIN.
If you have downloaded the latest drivers for that card from nVidia, install those. Otherwise, install the ones that came with the card.
Reboot.
Check if all hardware acceleration options in the driver settings are activated and acceptable for your system.

If the machine is still slow... Re-install XP from scratch, and install the nVidia drivers before anything else.

Sorry, but it's hard to give more useful advice without sitting in front of your system.

Done all that. The drivers I installed (after reinstalling XP) are the ones that came with the card on a CD.

Gonna leave it for today before I'm forced to get the hammer out. Might see if I've got a spare graphics card to try in it tomorrow.

MC Hammer... It cannot be that bad surely! ;)

GFK,
What happens when you use safe graphics mode, (or install a generic vga driver?) - At least this will tell you if its driver/gpu related or if something something else is killing performance.
When it slows down, is there constant light-locked-on disk activity or any processes chewing CPU cycles, if so what are the names?
Also, did you fully delete, create new and reformat the partition to ntfs (not quick format) as i read that vista and Xp use different versions and vistas can screw up XP royally.

Hope it helps, sounds like a pain in the butt :(

I have a 7800GS AGP on my athlon 3000+ and its pretty quick, plays Oblivion ok at 1280x1024 and even Crysis quite well at 1024x768 with mostly high settings turned up.

I recommend these drivers:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceWare-Omega-Driver-v216921-XP-download-1814.html

theres a thread about them on the Guru3D forums at:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=248770

-----

Other than that I don't know. If its an AGP card make sure your AGP bus gets at least 64 mb of system ram avaliable to it in the bios. (Don't think this is the problem since you have been running Vista already).

It could just be that Vista is a lot more responsive than XP and your not used to how slow XP's UI is. Even the Vista RC1 that just expired on my system the other week is a lot snappier than XP. And thats with the original CR1 video drivers.

There may be some truth in that.

Think I might reinstall Vista later and stick to 'borrowing' the g/f's PC for XP testing.