Video problem followup

Ooof. Thunder just set off a car alarm in the parking lot.
On the topic of my badly-behaving computer, as I mentioned I was going to do, I replaced the 10.3 GeForce driver with one from 10.2, but to no avail. Same behaviour — windows drag their outlines without their contents coming with them… or sometimes the outlines don’t move either. I have since discovered that running the Apple Developer tool Quartz Debug and choosing Tools -> Disable Quartz Extreme can alleviate the problem, though not completely — the windows redraw their content, but miss a bit here and there sometimes. And of course, without Quartz Extreme my computer is compositing the graphics, rather than my video card, so everything is a little slower. The Quartz Debug application is available on your computer at /Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/Quartz Debug if you’ve got the Developer tools installed, or, if you’re like me and have reinstalled your OS, have a look in /Previous Systems/Previous System 1/Developer/Applications/Performance Tools/Quartz Debug. If you don’t have the Developer (Xcode) Tools, you can download them (you’ll need an ADC account; if you haven’t got one, you can sign up for a free online one).
My most recent finding is that if I boot in Safe Mode, while the graphics on my system become pre-Quartz Extreme speed (and various other core functions, such as the audio on my computer, become disabled) — the redraw glitches are non-existent. My guess is that unlike disabling Quartz Extreme from within the Quartz Debug application, booting in Safe Mode really does disable Quartz Extreme, instead of just taking out its knees with a bat. Finally, over iChat today, Davin said he’d lend me his old GeForce2 MX when I got back — which should be identical to mine. If it works, I’ll know I have a problem with my card. Which would be just my luck, considering my 3-year AppleCare warranty coverage ran out at the end of July. Haha.
It’s about time I upgraded anyway 🙂