I know questions like this have been asked jillions of times before on this forum...however, I can't seem to find it with a cursory look-see.
 
My computer has been locking up some recently, and I think it's the video card (eVGA 8600GT 256 GDDR2).  The lockups are tending to happen while watching videos on hulu (through firefox), usually while skipping sections of the video (so...rebuffering is needed).  I was wondering if the video drivers are to blame.  I'm using the EVGA website's drivers for my card, which aren't the most up-to-date that nVidia has, but fairly close.
 
The only restriction regarding drivers is I wish to still be able to do CUDA tasks (SETI@home 6.10), which I believe uses CUDA 3 drivers.  CUDA 2 worked on a previous version of S@H and may still, but I'm not entirely sure.
 
When my computer crashes, most of the time lately it's been giving me a generic BSOD after it locks for about 20 seconds.  Sometimes it hangs for 3 minutes or so and doesn't respond to cntrl-alt-delete so I have to do a switch reset (and don't get a crash log).  The MS database gives the response of driver, virus or harddrive problem.  So...basically completely unhelpful. I've done a Sophos scan, an adaware scan, and sometimes do a disk scan (which sometimes comes up with minor errors, but I suspect that comes about because I have to switch reset some times).  I don't think I've recently done a malwarebytes scan, so I might do that, but I doubt it's a virus.

Also notes on proper uninstallation procedure of my current drivers would be appreciated. 

pagelm,
 
Take the graphics card out of your system and give it a look over for any blown capacitors or burn marks.  This card is definitely up there in age and who knows what might be going on physically.

I would still recommend double checking it.  This sounds like what I have seen in the past of a card failure... Not a guarantee, but starting with the basics is always good.

thanks for the note on the drivers.  I'll see what I run tonight when I'm back on that computer.
 
I do have the fan at 100% with high usage (when rivatuner/precision do the right thing) and I've manually set it at 100% and still get the problem.  The image artifacting happens when the card is quite cool comparitively, but as I said, I don't know what the lockup temperature is.  If I turn on rivatuner logging, does it save a different file each session or timestamp things?  Because I could run that, and assuming the buffer of the harddrive gets flushed to disk before the lockup I could look at my log on next boot.  But rivatuner autostarts with the computer, so if the log gets overwritten or has no internal timestamp and is appended...
 
I'm sure that CUDA loads the hardware more than a dang hulu video though, so I think I'd have more errors there and lock up occasionally while doing s@h, so that's why I think it's not temp.

Heads up... Guru3d has pulled Driver Sweeper down.  You can get it from the maker of the software though, Phyxion.net

nick1551

Personally the 197.45 from guru3d.com were the best for my 8800gt. Not sure what cuda version they ran.

If the card maxes out at 60c in seti, I would think it isn't a heat problem.

It actually has gone up to 80 in seti if RivaTuner fails to fire (see my posts about precision in the software forum - I still have this issue in Riva).  Running fan at 100% it gets up to 73 or so (depending on current temp).  60 is basically its idling temp.  During videos it probably goes up to 65 or so.
 

And if the issue arose after the motherboard replacement. I would start with a clean video driver install. Remove the driver, reboot into safe mode, run driver sweeper (from guru3d) for nvidia display, reboot and install the driver.

mostly a reply to the next helper: any idea why guru3d took down driver sweeper links?  Has it been causing issues?
 

What motherboard did you go to? Did you change chipsets? Have you installed the lastest chipset drivers? Or reinstalled windows?

I went from P5NSLI to P5N-D.  Same NVidia chipset.  I don't think this board is as solid, but I didn't see the negative reviews until AFTER I purchased it.  Ooops.  I have latest mobo drivers and just about everything else windowsXP SP3 (exceptions being MS Silverlight, .net crap, and Search 4.0).  I didn't reinstall Windows, as I've moved a few times since I installed XP and no longer have access to all my install media (tossed it away to move fewer things cross-country).  I have a cloned image (pre install of several major packages), but of course that was for the other motherboard...
 

Have you checked for any flash updates?

Motherboard: yes...flashed to most recent
Graphics card: no...was told not to here, despite finding slightly higher version number on a random website.
 
Thanks guys for all your suggestions!
 
As to upgrading my card: I basically figure I will do that with my next system purchase.  Too much of a cheapskate for good reason (student+family) to spend money when I can avoid it.  Of course if this card dies on me completely I'll replace it with the latest and greatest that my motherboard and XP can handle that would still be forward compatible to Windows7 and a newer board.

nick1551

Driver sweeper(setup)
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-(Setup)-download-1655.html


As for flash, I meant Adobe flash player updates.   And browser updates.

I thought the P5Nsli was the nforce 570 chipset and the P5N-d was the nforce 750i?  Thats a jump of two generations (570 < 650i/680 < 750i/780).  Switching chipsets without a reinstall can cause some incompatablities, especially with Win xp.  I have however switched back and forth from P35 to P45 with Win7 without any issues, as Win7 takes care of drivers very well by itself.  Also p35 to p45 didn't have many changes. 

As for an upgrade, a 750i should handle any gpu out there (psu and cpu dependent) and Win7 no problem.


GL

 
Right off the page you provided in red text.
 
Attention - Guru3D Driver Sweeper has been discontinued as such you will not find any download links here any longer.

nick1551

I thought the P5Nsli was the nforce 570 chipset and the P5N-d was the nforce 750i?

holy dyslexia batman.  Looks like I missed that until now.  would a repair install wipe out my program installs?  Things are working for the most part though....
 
Just looked up flash version...I'm a couple minors behind.  Running ...26, most up to date is ...34