just installed the new driver for my radeon 9600 256mb and when i play quake, my pc freezes after about 5 seconds if i ahve it on optimal performance and if its equal performance/quality i get like 40-60 fps and usually i have it capped at 125 and its always between 110-125, but this dumbass update ruined it. i thought it might be my tweaking utility so i uninstalled it, same thing as before. im doing a bunch of checks with spyware, registry errors and antivirus, but so far nothing is working. something similiar is happening also when i use winamp the screen goes black and wont turn back on, but my music still plays and goes to the next track. wtfux anyone help?

maybe it is because i dont have sp2 yet, but i hear mixed results from it. is it really worth getting, with the risk of an even worse pc?

Downgrade the driver (there should be a 'roll back driver' option) and then contact radeon or ati about the problem...

I cant get sp2, lol

Rollback the driver and use the old driver. The new driver may have a conflict with your system. Anyway if your system is working properly why do you need to update it? I have bad experience updating drivers and wasting a whole lot of time. Does it have to do with your refresh rate? Try it out.