nvidia geforce 8500GT crashing my pc

someone please help cos i,m totally flummoxed. have been using my pc with no probs for a year. my son bought me vista 64 bit so i did a full format and installed this OS. found all the drivers i needed for vista before i installed it and then the pc kept crashing when playing the games that come with vista, solitaire etc.. and browsing the internet .scoured the internet and found others has the same problem. i reformatted and went back to winxp 64. now i have the same problem which i didnt before. tried removing nvidia driver with driver cleaner pro and windows uploaded the driver.
heres my specs.
PC Wizard 2008 Version 1.871
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Owner: Weena
User: Administrator
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.02.3790 Service Pack 2
Report Date: Tuesday 05 May 2009 at 08:58

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<<< System Summary >>>

> Mainboard : Asus M2N-E SLI

> Chipset : nVidia nForce4

> Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ @ 2700 MHz

> Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )

> Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT

> Hard Disk : Hitachi (320 GB)

> Hard Disk : Maxtor (204 GB)

> DVD-Rom Drive : TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S202N

> CD-Rom Drive : LITE-ON LTR-52246S

 

Try disconnecting any added hardware, your extra drives, etc. Go into the BIOS at startup, check the temperatures and voltages. Consider that the power supply may be failing. When the system is running, check that all the fans are spinning freely.

Check all the basics. For example, are any IDE drives jumpered correctly?

If I have a "bad" Windows installation, I remove any added hardware and start again. Install all the drivers and test the system before getting Windows Updates. Note when you install the nVidia chipset drivers that they recommend not to install the IDE drivers (unless you need to?).

Check temperatures for the graphics. I was using a GeForce 8500 (fanless) recently and was getting temperatures well into the 80's (*C) without being under load. I could imagine it was slowly getting "cooked ".

You can test the memory (see my signature).

Matt

 

how do i check the temperature. there is a temp at the front of my pc that says 38c.

 

if i remove the nvidia display driver then things are fine.

 

By "remove ", do you mean you uninstalled, or did you "roll back" to your previous driver? Is the resolution now the way you like it?

 

totally removed it and now the graphics are slow when scrolling

 

Try SIW
http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html
under Hardware -> Sensors

 

its an ATX 12V P4 PSU MODEL 400U AND ITS ABOUT 16 MONTHS OLD SAME AS PC