an issue with NVIDIA graphics card i am having

[Lisa20]

Hello there,
My name is Lisa and i have this issue with my graphics card, i would really appriciate if you could help me resolve it.

I am running Windows XP professional edition on a Intel Pentium 4 , 1.5Ghz , 640MB SDRAM, 40GB 7200RPM WD HDD. and i have GEFORCE 256 32MB graphics card.

A month ago i connected to the Cable Internet and ever since for some reason i began having an issue with the graphics.

one morning my computer simply crashed without any notice. i restarted the computer and once the PC started, (before the windows even began to load). i saw lines crossing my screen (like bars). on the Pentium 4 loading screen i saw the lines, on the windows starting screen i saw lines.
once it reached the scandisk and it was finished, the PC simply got stuck and won't go any further (won't start windows).
thou when i tryed to run safe mode, the PC started without any lines issue.
i gave up, went into a vacation, came back and tried to start the PC again, and walla, everything worked fine for some reason. and i didn't do anything to fix it. but after a few days the whole story came back again. now i would want to mention before that sometimes the PC , in the middle of a game or a while i am watching a video, screws up the graphics, everything goes with lines again , but not the whole screen , just the video. or while i am running a game, the PC turns off the monitor for a moment, then starts it back again only that the game gets stuck , or the PC works EXTREMELY slow (as if it stops for a monent, then comes back for a second to work again, then stops again and so on).
and when i start the PC again i get an error message from windows saying i had a major system crush and the cause to that seemed to be the drivers for my NVIDIA GEFORCE 256 card. i tried to reinstall the graphics card, also downloaded the latest driver for my card from nvidia.com website, and it seemed to fix the problem for a while, but then it all came back again..
i am working with computers for years and i know alot about them, i am working as a network administrator for a local ISP, but an issue like that i never experienced and i don't know how to handle it.

i also seem to be infected with alot of viruses , now i know what you will say , that i have to format, that's what i am going to do. only i have another issue with that, the windows XP won't let me format. it says something like (the drive is in use by another user/program, when i try to lock it so i could format it, it says failed to lock. and there is no DOS mode in windows so no matter what i do it won't let me format.
i would really appriciate any help regarding the issue with the graphics card of mine, i would add a screenshot of my screen right now but i can't in here, anyway i see blue lines all over my screen right now. thou i am sure that the problem seems to be going along with the drivers cuz my PC wouldn't start now, so i REinstalled directx 9 and reinstalled my geforce 256 drivers, and the pc started again in normal mode (not safe mode). but the lines are stilla ll over the screen and now i also have weird shadows all over the scren. i mean when i right click or open some window, it stretches sort of a shadow to the edge of the screen, dark lines and everything. i wish you could see it. but even if ill take a screenshot i don't think you'll be able to see it cuz it's my graphics card that is screwed up and you will just see a normal screenshot.

I would REALLY appriciate any help because i am ready to give up
i have no time to bring the PC to a lab , besides i have a bad experience with labs, once they erased all my important data on my HDD and i lost thousands of dollars by that.
i would also backup my important data and then format, but it won't let me format either.

please help me if you can.
Thank you for your time.
Lisa.

[Play_The_0dds]

i see this alot, it is virus based. even if you remove the virus and repair the system never acts quite the same. you can format some and the problems may be different but there are still odd problems. the only sure-fire way to fix this i have had any luck with is secure erase/low level format/packet write, which ever name you use, they are all the same thing. it erases the hard drive back to raw state(like a new hard drive) the boot sector is erased as well. then format and install. you may have to try a few things to get it to take the format. if you have a floppy drive use a disk utility that has secure erase options to boot the pc and erase. if for some reason it wont allow the format use a windows 98 se boot disk, fdisk at the A:\ prompt and delete all the partitions then boot and run the secure erase. just deleting the partitions does not remove info on the drive, using windows format options does not either. a good packet write/secure erase will take hours to run(well worth the effort) then just boot with the os cd and follow the directions to format and install. you can get any bootdisk from
http://www.bootdisk.com/
i use the secure erase option from a maxtor diagnostic disk, but many are availible and there are many free ones on the net.
years ago this was common practice to secure erase the disk before a format and reinstall.

[sicknote2]

"in the middle of a game or a while i am watching a video, screws up the graphics, everything goes with lines again , but not the whole screen , just the video. or while i am running a game, the PC turns off the monitor for a moment, then starts it back again only that the game gets stuck , or the PC works EXTREMELY slow (as if it stops for a monent, then comes back for a second to work again, then stops again and so on).
and when i start the PC again i get an error message from windows saying i had a major system crush and the cause to that seemed to be the drivers for my NVIDIA GEFORCE 256 card. "

I am running just about every anti-malware program you can shake a stick at and I regularly use panda activescan to double-check, there are no spyware bugs or other snoopy little glitches showing up, no viruses, trojans or worms courtesy of AVG and WormGuard, but the same problem occurs with my machine. It is an AMD2600+XP barton based ASUS motherboard with NVIDIA chipset, so I thought that the best graphics card would be NVIDIA GeForce FX5500 256mb 128bit. Fool that I am. I have tried everything INCLUDING ACTIVE KILLDISK PRO and re-initializing the drives, but the problem just keeps occurring. HELP!

[grw]

NVIDIA never signed on with Microsoft and so none of NVIDIA's drivers are "digitally signed". When WinXp does its update it apparently downloads an updated graphics driver for the NVIDIA cards. The problem is that they are not NVIDIA drivers .. they are Microsoft's closest approximation.

I don't know if this is your problem, but I have seen something similar correcetd on two other machines so far running XP with NVIDIA cards.

Solution: go to NVIDIA
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
and download the latest graphics driver for your card

Hope this helps.