Corrupted display?

[GreP]

Hi guys,

here's my system specs:
Abit kg7raid mobo
amd athlon 1ghz (133Mhz FSB)
geforce4 mx 440 graphics card @ 800X600 @ 16bits depth
win XP pro with sp1

ok, here goes:
after my clean installation of XP Pro from win98 SE (it refuses to upgrade) I began to experience problems with my graphics. There'd be frequent patches of white in Microsoft word and some other programs, but mainly word. This is getting me freaked out as I can't see the toolbar. This usually happens only when i begin scrolling the window. I didn't experience this problem when using my geforce 4 on win98SE (at least I didn't notice any problems. well, I only used my geforce 4 on win98SE for a day or 2).

This problem happens mainly in word, and occasionally MSN messenger. My bios is set with AGP Fast Write On, and AGP write speed at 4X.

I've installed SP1, and the problem persisted. Installed newest directx9, upgraded all of my mobo drivers and graphics card drivers, and the problem is still there.
Tried reinstalling graphics card drivers, won't work. Adjusted refresh rates, won't work also. Tried switching from 16Bits to 32Bits, problem still here.

Also tried to turn off AGP fast write, reinstalling office and messenger but to no avail. Also tried to do a repair of winXP by using the *repair* function in XP installation.
However, after much tweaking around, I managed to find 3 solutions:

1) Uninstall the graphics card drivers and not installing them back (i doubt this is a good solution as Windows keep prompting me to reinstall them back)

2) Turning down the video Hardware Acceleration in Windows' Advanced Display Properties 4 notches down till it saes
<I>Disable all directdraw and direct3d accelerations, as well as all cursor and advanced drawing accelerations. Use this setting to correct severe problems with DirectX accelerated applications.</I>

3) Turning down the AGP write speed from 4X to 2X, after which I feel that my display is actually much smoother, particularly my scrolling. Scrolling at 4X was actually much *choppy* than 2x.

I'd hate to downgrade to win98 (which, sadly, also causes some problems with my modem) or do a clean reinstallation of XP. can someone pls help? if there really aren't any other solutions, then can someone pls tell me which of the 3 solutions I *discovered* would be better? thx in advance

 

[cleeve]

Solution 3... turning your AGP speed down to 2x... is the best solution.
Your system won't benefit too much from the 4x AGP speed.

Solutions 1 and 2 are both basically disabling your video card's hardware acceleration entirely, so that's not so good.

I'd try disabling fast writes in your BIOS, too. That might clear up some instability.

Sounds like a driver issue, though. Have you tried different driver versions?

- Cleeve