ASUS 7700 problems with win2k! The slowdown is driving me nuts!

[BigM1]

I'm running the Nvidia Detonator 12.41 drivers for windows 2000 on my Asus 7700 32mb Deluxe Geforce 2. I have tried others, but same problem. Here's the problem: my games run 80% slower than they run in win98. I've had this problem for a long time, but I'm going nuts. I have a geforce that wont run faster than my old voodoo2! Here's my only clue to why it isnt working: when I update the driver (to any other version of the detonator driver) and then I dont restart my machine, I get full speed. But as soon as i restart it goes back to the slowdown. When I try the asus drivers, windows 2000 hangs during its boot process. I think both problems are related to the registry (hence the problem started when I re-boot). If anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Here's my hardware config, in case you figure something is conflicting:

AMD Thunderbird 1ghz
asus k7a motherboard w/ ata100 (no sound)
256 cl2 mem
creative live soundcard
creative dxr3
adaptec ava 2740
yamaha 8x4x24 internal scsi
maxtor 60gb dmax 7200
allied telesyn at-2500 network card
ide zip drive
nec floppy
ata 100 raid card