Late 2007 MacBook w/ x3100, still no drivers?

My late 2007 MacBook (2.0 Ghz C2D, 2 gigs RAM, x3100 video) is still suffering from slow, stuttering graphics in OS X. I don't mean games, I am talking about just the OS animations, like genie effect, expose, etc. I know there were a few threads about this back when Leopard was first released, but I haven't heard much about it recently. AFAIK there has not been a fix issued for this, even though with some research it turns out to be a fairly common problem. Apparently the drivers are to blame, and no new drivers have been included with any updates to Leopard.

To get an idea of how bad it is, imagine completely disabling your graphics drivers, as in removing them from the Extensions folder. I have actually done this, and there is no difference at all. Animations are just as slow with the drivers installed as they are WITHOUT any drivers at all! My girlfriend's 2006 MacBook with the GMA950 blows mine away in graphics performance, and this just shouldn't be.

Has anyone heard ANYTHING about any new drivers? Am I missing some vital piece of information or a fix which has been issued by someone other than Apple? Does anyone feel up to writing new drivers for the x3100? There just has to be an answer to this somewhere out there.

Sounds like you deleted something you shouldn't have. Try doing a clean install of OS X, that will help you out. Actually, download Onyx and run the permissions. It may be able to help you out. If not, go for the clean install.

ADKhikerVW said:

Has anyone heard ANYTHING about any new drivers? Am I missing some vital piece of information or a fix which has been issued by someone other than Apple? Does anyone feel up to writing new drivers for the x3100? There just has to be an answer to this somewhere out there.

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The Intel GMA X3100 chipset was standard on the MacBook until recently when the new aluminum models were released. I can't believe your MacBook would require different or new drivers from mine which also uses that chipset. If the drivers were at fault, Apple would have corrected them long ago.

I agree with the previous post. You need to do an erase and re-install of Leopard. If after that you're still having difficulties, it's time to contact Apple support as that may indicate a hardware problem.

Regards.

No, I have done multiple reinstalls, that is not the problem.

I removed the x3100 .kexts from the extensions folder just for comparison, and then replaced them, so me deleting something is not the case. I know my way around the system. System profiler shows the correct chipset model, QE/CI enabled, etc..

I have done just about everything short of creating my own drivers from scratch. This is actually a known problem, not just with my MacBook, but with many others as well. I guess no one on here was aware of it, but it was discussed on other forums extensively in the past. Apple claims it is normal, no hardware issue, and recommends I wait for a driver update which will probably never come. Oh well..