7900 GT OC - Vista 3D Fragmented Display Issue & Fix

In case someone else comes across a similar issue, I thought I would post a recent experience to hopefully save someone else the time and research.Issue: Some, if not all, factory-overclocked 7900GT video cards from the likes of Evga, XFX, and BFG, may have a 3D display issue with the Nvidia Vista drivers whereby, once a 3D display (including the Aero desktop) was activated, the display would become fragmented in semi-horizontal, wavy, completely unreadable, lines (garbage).At first I thought it was a driver issue but after a thorough Google search, I was convinced otherwise as no version of any Nvidia Vista driver was addressing the severe problem. The fragmented display is immediately noticeable after logging into a Vista box (after the first reboot) following the installation of the Nvidia drivers. The login screen is not a 3D Aero display and that is why the fragmented (corrupted display) lines don't appear until Aero kicks-in following the login. This would also be detrimental to any 3D games.Fix: The issue is a compatibility problem between the new Vista Nvidia drivers and the way these cards were set with higher clocks. Implementing the following procedure, I can attest to its fixing the issue permenently.Download Nibitor and NvFlash from the web.Use Nbitor to save an original copy of the GPU BIOS to your hard-drive. Edit a duplicate copy of the BIOS (just in case) and slightly under-clock or overclock the new BIOS by a few Hz. According to others, as little as 6Hz change fixes the issue.Caution; Vista x64 users (like me), Nibitor will not read your original GPU BIOS in a x64 environemnt, so using another machine, I quickly made a bootable "Ultimiate Build CD for Windows" (UBCDWIN - like BartPE) based on my WinXPsp2 CD, and came up in a temporary x86 environment for the Nbitor edits.Once you have saved the modified BIOS to your hard-drive, create a bootable NvFlash floppy and copy the modified BIOS to it, boot from the floppy, and burn the new BIOS to your GPU. This will permanently fix the issue without specialized software or boot procedures. Specific NFlash instructions can be found in the associated Readme file.I chose to slightly underclock my EVGA 7900GT OC in my newely built Vista-U x64 Rig becuase it is now a general-use PC as well as a Simconnect/WideFS PC. This allowed me to dedicate my C2D to gaming only.Good luck, Hope this post saves someone else the headaches I incurred.UBCD for Windows - http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htmNiBiTor v3.6 - http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...arent,category/nvFlash v5.57 - http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,co...arent,category/