Help: serious VMware/XP problem under FC6

[Dean S. Messing]

My XP installation under VMware is running incredibly slowly.  The
second hand on the XP "date and clock" is taking several seconds to
move 1 secoond!

Here's my installation, in brief:
-- Fresh install of FC6 (respin DVD) on a clean Dell Precision M70 laptop.
-- The machine has  the nVidia "Quadro FX Go1400" video processor in it.
-- All FC6 updates as of yesterday (186 of them).
-- 2.6.19.1-2911 kernel, and opensource "nv" driver
-- Fresh install of VMwareWorkstation-5.5.3

VMware itself comes up fine,
but XP starts and runs _really_really_really_ slowly.

Does anyone have a clue?  I am stumped.

Dean