5.3 Xorg jerky

[Adrian Patino II]

Hello, 

Fairly new to FreeBSD. Recently did a fresh install from 4.10 to 5.3,
and noticed that when in X, things are a bit jerky, enough for me to
notice at least.  Anything scrolling jerks and SDL video programs are
very jerky.  Wondering what in particular should I look into to fix
this?
Also, when I previously was using 4.10, my computer made a heck of a
lot of noise, which I blamed on a cheap powersupply. It was also very
hot (which i also blamed on the powersupply)- I had to turn it off
when I did not use it. When I ran X,  there were dark vertical lines
on the lcd which I assumed was due to it being old and cheap. All this
changed however when I installed 5.3. The computer is completely quiet
at all times and the graphics are sharper than ever, much much sharper
than my xp computer.  Anyways, I guess im wondering if there was
anything I might have been doing insanely wrong, so that I can prevent
that from happening in the future.
I know this questions are very broad, but im too new to this game to
make them more specific, hopefully someone can point me in the right
direction.
thanks
Adrian