Hey does the pop up have anything about "nvlddmkm.sys" ?

Have you gotten all your updates for vista?

I'm still looking around, but so far I'm thinking its ether a driver/OS issue, a lack of power, or a hardware failure of the graphics card.

The following is a fix from eggheadcafe.com:

Quote::

I have found and fixed the problem today. This is what appears to happen. during the installation of the most current drivers 100.65 Vista, an OLD file nvlddmkm.sys is copied into windows/system32/drivers and not the current one in the install. As a result the new drivers are attempting to access a file dated 11/2006 instead of 2/2007 ver 7.15.11.0065 which is in the newest WHQL driver ver 100.65 vista 32. Fix: Go to windows/system32/drivers and rename nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm.sys.old. Go to the nvidia directory and find the file vlddmkm.sy_ and copy it to windows/system32. Using the cmd window (DOS box) type EXPAND.EXE nvlddmkm.sy_ nvlddmkm.sys. When the expansion is complete, copy the new nvlddmkm.sys to windows/system32/drivers and restart the computer. Your computer should now work properly. You will notice that any uninstall and reinstall of nvidia drivers will not remove the old nvlddmkm.sys file and will not overwrite it with the newer version. You have to do it manually. I do not know why this happens but who cares as long it is fixed. Good luck...

I'm guessing that the driver cleaner didn't clean out this file for what ever reason. Only do this if the date on your nvlddmkm.sys file is a date much older then today. (like more then 4 months)

another thing I found on how to remove the nvlddmkm.sys. AParently there may be more then one copy of it in your System32 folder...

Quote::

1. UAC was turned on. ZoneAlarm was running (FW/AV) 2. First thing, download DriverCleaner. More recent the revision the better. Install this app. 3. Remove the Nvidia display drivers. My mobo is an Asus Extreme Striker so I only removed the display drivers. 4. Restart the PC into SM (safe mode) - (F8 at boot) 5. Login in while into SM 6. Run DriverCleaner. Choose the Nvidia option only. Only option I used but you can try all of them if you feel frisky 7. Empty RecycleBin (I set my RB to delete perm all the time so I don’t usually do the empty thing…) 8. Reboot into normal mode Vista 9. Using Explorer or open My Computer and browse C:\Windows\ 10. Right-Click on System32 folder and click ‘search’ 11. Enter NV*.sys 12. This will show you all the Nvidia system files in the folder. The ones we are interested in is the ‘nvlddmkm.sys’ and how many copies we have. 13. If you tried multiple install/uninstall you will a few copies of it. I had 19 copies. If you look at the location, they were all in the ‘FileRepository’ folder under different subfolder. Something like nv_as***, nv_io***, etc 14. Note down the name of the sub folders where the file is located, nv_as*** 15. So we now know that we have X copies of the nvlddmkm.sys file and what folders they are located in under the FileRep folder. There might be one under the main system32 folder as well. Note it down. 16. Vista has a totally awesome function. ACLs for network geeks…Access-Control Lists or Access-Lists or whatever you want to call them 17. Browse to Accessories from the Start menu (win icon>all programs) 18. Right-Click on command and click ‘Run as Admin’ 19. There are other ways 2 do the step above…I just got it pinned to my start menu or u can just press the win key on ur keyboard and type command 20. OK so in our Admin CMD window we type the following commands in sequence 21. takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\*.* 22. The command above will give you ownership of all the files under the FileRep folder 23. cacls C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\*.* /G Username:F 24. Replace username with your windows account name or login name 25. Like magic we are done. Oh and if ur wondering…u cant do the above via GUI. Windows will give you permission but you would still not be able to delete anything  26. Earlier we did the search for the nvlddmkm.sys under the system32 folder. Do that again. In the search results, select all the instances of the nvlddmkm.sys file and delete them. OK, next is a totally optional step but I did it to make 100% sure it was all gone. 27. We noted down all the nv_as**, etc folder which had the nvlddmkm.sys file in it, delete the folders and empty ur RecBin 28. Fire up your ForceWare drivers for the install. Disabled ur AV before hand, it does make a difference (git) 29. Restart, login, set ur resolution and enjoy the whole error-free nvlddmkm.sys effect. 30. Few notes. Make sure u can see the file extensions and system files are not hidden (blasphemous behaviour for techGeeks). Google search to show hidden window files and extension if u have no idea what to do