Windows Aero turns to basic automatically

I have this problem that Windows 7 Ultimate automatically resets my color scheme from Aero to basic at random moments. What could possibly be the cause of this?

Specifications:

• Intel core i7-930 @3.0GHz
• XFX Ati Radeon HD5850 1GB GDDR5
• ASUS P6T SE Motherboard
• 6GB DDR3 RAM @ 1900Mhz

Windows says that the performance of my computer is not good enough for "Aero", but if this were true, I can't imagine what computer you need to use Windows 7 with Aero :)

Solution 1:

Since it happens using multiple GPU-intensive productivity apps simultaneously, perhaps you're overrunning the capabilities of the graphics card or system memory, even though you seem to have plenty.

In Photoshop CS5, go to Edit > Preferences > Performance and tweak some of the settings. The ones I would try are reducing the memory usage, disabling OpenGL Drawing, and perhaps reducing the Cache Levels. I'm not familiar with Maya but maybe it has similar settings to use fewer RAM or GPU resources.

Solution 2:

I suspect that this is a problem with your graphics card drivers. Check to make sure that you have the latest version (run the latest version installer just to be sure).