Came across this issue following a recent graphic driver update and thought I would post in case any of you experienced a similar problem.When the Catalysts install on your system, they install and enable two new Services: 'ATI Hotkey Poller', and 'ATI Smart'. If you don't use the ATI Hotkey settings then you can safely disable the ATI Hotkey Poller service.Things may not be so clear cut with ATI Smart, however, for the information I have obtained suggests that this service seems to continually detect system conditions at boot time and adjust SmartGart settings, if needed, to maintain stability.I have 2 Hardware Profiles - one for general operations: 'Profile 1' and one for gaming: 'Gaming'. Only essential services are running under the latter.Follwing a recent driver update for my 9800 Pro 128MB GPU I was checking the list of running Services and decided to try the effect of disabling the ATI Smart service under my Hardware 'Profile 1'. I then went to the SMARTGART tab under Display Properties - Settings - Advanced and clicked on 'Retest All'. Nothing happened until I performed a warm reboot.The first thing I noticed was a change in the draw rate of the desktop and menu selection. It was substantially slower than before. I fired up DirectX Diagnostic Tool (dxdiag), clicked on the Display tab and noted that DirectDraw, Direct3D and Texture Acceleration were all disabled. This situation persisted, despite several reboots, until I re-enabled the Ati Smart service. I then performed a further warm reboot and the behaviour, once again, was as we all experience at first reboot following a driver update: Windows loads to the desktop and then the screen blanks momentarily as SMARTGART does its stuff. Performance was restored and DirectDraw, Direct3D and Texture Acceleration were all re-enabled as confirmed by running DirectX Diagnostics.http://www.ati.com/products/catalyst/SmartGart-FAQ.pdfSo, despite various sources on the Internet describing the Ati Smart service as a resource hog and recommending disabling it, my advice would be to leave the default setting at 'Automatic'. I have noted on my system that following this initial activity after a driver change, as described above, this service seems to become inactive thereafter. This observation would appear to suggest that ATI Smart is not such a resource hog after all and this service may only be needed to monitor current driver settings at boot time to ensure stability.This behaviour may differ on different system setups so it might be worth experimenting before trying the effect of disabling the ATI Smart service permanently.Mike

"Follwing a recent driver update for my 9800 Pro 128MB GPU I was checking the list of running Services and decided to try the effect of disabling the ATI Smart service under my Hardware 'Profile 1'. I then went to the SMARTGART tab under Display Properties - Settings - Advanced and clicked on 'Retest All'. Nothing happened until I performed a warm reboot."Hi Mike,I did this once, too. Happened when I disabled the ATI Smart service before the obligatory reboot after a new driver install.The driver install automatically turns on the ATI Smart service (and ATI Hotkey Poller as well) during the driver install. The reboot then causes the card to read the system's GART table, and all is well. Once that is sccomplished the ATI Smart service can be disabled (it's no longer needed). This all happens because during the removal of the previous drivers (which, of course, should always be done) the GART table is cleaned away for the new driver install.FWIW, PCI-e cards have GART built into them, so therefore they don't require a handshake with the motherboard's GART table. This is (supposed to be) faster and more stable. ATI's PCI-e cards have no use for SmartGart (and in fact don't have the function at all. Makes life easier.).On my previous ATI systems that used AGP cards I always disabled ATI Hotkey Poller (I don't use the function) as well as ATI Smart services, but only after the reboot following a driver install.Cheers,Greg

Hi Greg,Thanks for your additional input. I appreciate it. Amazing what we are all continuing to learn from reading these forums. :)Best regards,Mike