i'm having problem with the X gui, it looks as though it is drawing really slowly, as i can actaully see windows being redrawn when i move them. i've noticed that my horizontal and vertical refresh rates are negative, which seems strange to me. however both the refresh rates are within my monitor specs if they were positive.

i'm running mandrake 8.0, with a radeon 7000 64mb AGP. could the negative refresh rates have anything to do with the slow X gui?

No, the slowness you see has probably nothing to do with 'negative refresh rates'.

Do you also experience this problem when 'full window dragging' is on? Try turning this feature off, your computer will feel a lot faster.

However... your refresh rates should always be as optimal as possible.

Does your monitor say what Hz it is running?
Does this comply with the capabilities of that monitor?

ps. What kind of monitor have you got?

As for the slowness, you've got Mandrake 8.0 which includes XFree86 4.0.3. Newer versions of XFree86 support numerous enhancements for Radeon chipset, so you can alway try that if it bothers too much.

You can find newer XFree86 versions in more recent Mandrake Linux versions.

Good luck!