Vista refusing to start up; graphics card problem? (moved from Vista Forum)

[SkyRay]

First time poster not sure if I should post here...

Summary: Vista refuses to start up properly except in safe mode (primary problem). As well as coloured lines running down my screen (secondary problem).


In depth: I have had my computer for 1 year now and I made it myself. During the year it hasn't had any major problems whatsoever; I was very pleased with it. One day while I was playing RA3 (worked many times before), the screen blanks out and I get the "your display driver has recovered from a serious crash". After around several of those, the game's colour goes all weird and I am forced to close it.

I downloaded a new more recent driver, however when I tried unintalling my old driver, the computer froze up. I gave it one hour to unfreeze itself thinking it was doing something, but after the hour I rebooted the computer where I was greeted with the funny coloured lines. Afterwards I found out vista wont even proceed after the loading bars at the startup.

I went to safe mode (with all the funny lines still there) and uninstalled the driver and put in new ones, but that didn't work either. In the end I had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall vista. At first everything was fine (though the lines were still there). I installed my old driver (new ones give me a blank screen on start up or a blue screen) and the lines went away. Unfortunately after 10 minutes or so, the computer freezes up with blue spots appearing on the screen forcing a reboot and the old problems appeared all over again.


The situation now: vista only starts up properly when the drivers are gone (uninstalled) otherwise I am forced to use safemode. The lines are still there and when I reinstall teh driver, the lines go away for 10 secs before the computer freezes up with blue spots.

I am thinking of getting a new graphics card...


System specs:

Intel quad core 2.4Ghz CPU
ASUS PK5R mother board
Gigabyte Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb factory O/C
4GB ram

I am sure that the system is getting enough power with proper heat management. If you guys need more info I'll be happy to comply.

Thanks.