Graphics Problem

This post of basically anyone having a problem with an XFX 6600GT and NForce Based motherboards.

I'll set the scene, I am beta testing the latest Nvidia Drivers for my newly purchased card to extra "ummph" out of it, and every time I click to load the new control panel it crashes, so I wait for a new beta and boom same error, so I think and I quote "FUCK THAT".

So I decided I'd remove all Nvidia crap, and then use DriverCleaner from www.guru3d.com to remove all crap, Platform drivers and graphics drivers.

I then go to www.nvidia.com and get the latest Nforce4 drivers even though mine is Nforce2 it supposedly uses a Unified Driver Architecture, so that all drivers support all revisions, so I installed that all works fine except it doesn't install the Network Adapter, no biggy I am using wireless. (This was a problem I knew of before and I had the driver if needed)

I then installed the latest beta drivers, restarted and checked the control panel click the button, BOOM death still, so I thought they must be dodgy so I removed them and used the latest WHQL signed drivers from www.nvidia.com so I thought back to where we are.

Played a few games, did stuff it was fine.

Then decided to upgrade my PowerStrip demo to the latest release, all fine.

Played a few games, fine.

Few days passed started playing King Kong and I got a few artefacts on screen, thought oops, ah well, a restart will be fine. Then it was ok, played CS:S like I do nearly everyday :S and I got artefacts, first thing I thought overheating, so I took my side panel off, still occurred. I loaded de_dust with HDR enabled and my fps is usually about 25 for that map, it was <10. So I got RivaTuner to check heat of card, ask a few people one including Rom from www.romsteady.net he said the heat was ok, but he had a similar problem relating to a dodgy power supply, I thought GREAT!!! I also couldnt play any Media files it would crash any media player I used or made it use 100% CPU

So I thought last try, try www.nvidia.com forums I registered and first sign a sticky http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=294 "Artefacts in all DX Games".
Yes, problem over! Opened up it said:

Please disable AGP Fastwrites in BIOS
Update motherboard BIOS and chipset driver.

and then it clicked why my Powerstrip didnt like my hardware, and such my platform drivers where wrong, related to my network.

So I uninstalled Nforce4 installed Nforce2 and then tested and everything worked, I also turned off AGP Fastwrites afterwards incase I stopped any future problems.

There we go.

Cheers Sarkie.