Dell 9100 slow as heck

[cheesehead]

My dell 9100 laptop is unbelievably slow. Even at 800x600 with all the visual goodies turned off, it can't run Mechwarrior 4 at an even moderately acceptable level of visual quality. All the drivers are installed, etc., and I turned off power optimization. The OS is a bit unresposive, and Halo runs bizzarely; none of the textures seem to work. Bizzarely enough, however, UT2004 seems to run just fine.
Specs:
3Ghz P4
Mobile 9700/128mb
1GB Corsair XMS laptop ram, DDR400/PC3200 CAS2.5
60GB 7200RPM/8mb HDD.

Anyone know what the problem is?

 

[Tab]

Bad Ram?

 

[kayatai]

HDD in PIO mode instead of DMA?

 

[cheesehead]

The RAM seems to be fine (registers as 1GB) and both disk drives are UDMA. The Graphics card DAC is 350mhz, which seems about right for the M9700.
Any other ideas?

 

[burek]

format


btw, are you using the dell drivers for the 9700? you could try the Omega drivers and see if they make a difference

 

[cheesehead]

Holy Cow!
After installing the Omega drivers, performance has improved beyond recognition. Although the clock has been bumped up 50mhz, 400mhz is really the max stock speed ATI intended, anyways.
Thanks!
-Cheesehead.