x3100 with high ram

[leeward]

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced any problems with the Intel x3100 GMA 965 and high RAM. I originally had Mint on my laptop (Thinkpad T61) and the graphics worked great. Even when I had it on high effects (showing off to friends), it never skipped a beat. When I threw 4GB of RAM in, I started having problems and was told to go back to 2GB. Something about the Intel driver not playing nice with that much RAM. I said screw that and that's when I tried the 64 bit openSUSE 11 (which ended up being great because it brought me back to SuSE!).

Everything was working fine until today. I had my laptop off the last week and today I reinstalled (because I wanted to re-do my partitioning scheme from scratch). Well, after that, it seems like my graphics are shot. Everything seems to be running slower than it should. Simple things like scrolling in FF (Opera is slightly better). Now, I'm guessing the Intel driver is having problems here too. Even before the re-install Google Earth would hiccup a little, but I don't use it that much so I could live with it, but now everything is running the same way.

I tried a couple of threads I found to fix the issue (including the downgrade and editing xorg.conf). It helped a little, but it's still bothering me. Does anyone else have a problem with the x3100 and high RAM? If so, is there a workaround? I really don't want to have to throw 4GB on the side. I like having my 4GB. It makes me happy inside.

I've turned off Compiz for now and that helps out a lot. Google Earth still lags a little, but most everything else works out though. Now if I could just figure out how to keep windows on top even when click on the "bottom" window...I can do it in KDE, but not GNOME (focus will follow the mouse, but I can't click like I want). That's not important though, the whole x3100 with high RAM is...any ideas out there?