strange problem with XFX 8800 GTS, help!

[shadyJ]

Maybe someone can help me out with this. At times my 8800 GTS will just take a massive 3/4s hit in performance (like going from 8000+ score in 3dmark to 2000, and similar drops in performance in other games). I think this is more prone to happening when I overclock the card, but it has happened when the card wasn't overclocked. It will stay that way until I either re-install the drivers, or reset them to 'defaults' in rivatuner. After that the card will behave normally again.

I looked at the temp logs in graphics heavy applications and they never even touched 70C, so I don't think overheating is the cause. Something is just bombing this card at a software level, like in the drivers or something. Does anyone know what could trigger this?

Oh yeah, and the obligitory system specs:
winXP SP2
eVGA 680i motherboard
C2D e6400 OC'd to 2.93 Ghz
Crucial Tenth Anniversary (not OC'd)
Everything is with latest drivers.

[shard]

Power supply? It realy sounds like a power related issue to me. Especially since you said that it tends to do that when you overclock it wich would really lead me to beleive that it is power related.

[ninja6o4]

There is a similar thread for this somewhere on here. Do a search, but I think the solution was to remove driver, run DriverCleaner to completely wipe it out, then install the driver again.

[coms]

shady, my 8800gtx was going in slow mode as well with the 97.02 drivers and anything previous. When i used driver cleaner and installed the 97.44's the slow mode went away. It would basically be fine for a few hours , if i rebooted or changed from one game to another, the performace would drastically drop.
give this a try