My 3dmark score is dropping? whodunnit

[sjps220]

I was comparing my 3dmark06 results while researching a new graphics card, and I thought I'd run it again since I've changed a few things around in the last month and my score has dropped from 1630 to around 1530-60.

I'm having trouble pinpointing what would affect the score so much. The changes that I've made to my system over the last month that I can recall are: installed battlefield 2, tried a SMALL amount of graphics overclocking for about an hour and then reset to stock, updated my bios, updated graphics drivers and created avis from .tga files so I have about 15 less gigs of free space. Still plenty of room on the hard drive.

When I compare the cpu scores, they are almost identical (actually the one with the lower overall score has a slightly higher cpu score).

Is is possible for newer drivers to negatively affect my score?

Any suggestions as to what would cause this decrease in scores?

 

[sjps220]

Okay, I just uninstalled my display drivers and reinstalled the older ones I was using before (81.98) and my score went back up to 1630. This seems strange.

Should I stick with 81.98 then?

 

[Rik]

Not sure about the driver, but have you defragged your system recently? A fragmented drive can certainly impare system performance. Perhaps a scan disk wouldn't go amiss too.