G50VT bluescreening, cites display drivers

*EDIT - original issue solved, please see second post.

Hello all, I've had my G50VT since 2008. This week it's started blue screening, and graphically glitching leading up to an eventual blue screen, while performing normal web browsing tasks or when trying to launch a program; basically at random. I had made no changes to the system prior to this happening. Been reading as much as I can, and I'm working through the various suggestions I've found, but I'd really appreciate any help with troubleshooting.

I booted to safe mode and disabled my display adapter, and have no problems, so it's definitely somehow related to my graphics card.

Here's what I've tried so far..

Updated my display drivers to the most recent, directly from Nvidia's website. Issue persists. Uninstalled those drivers, tried the old ones again, get same problem. I haven't tried deleting all the old drivers manually but I did a "clean install" that the newest driver installer offered. Still could be a driver issue but after years running fine, seems odd.

In case it was an overheating issue, I've reapplied thermal paste to the GPU, and after downloading GPU-Z to monitor it, it's idling at about 50C and under load hits mid 70C (it remained stable enough for me to run Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 to test temps). The GPU was very light on thermal paste when I opened it to check that, so it's possible the GPU had overheated. Even running cool, problem persists.

I understand sometimes other drivers might cause this type of problem, so I've looked for new chipset drivers but seem to have the most recent. No help that my computer is pushing past its generation, so new drivers get tough to find. I've read sometimes a fresh Windows install will solve these things. Got my stuff backed up so I'll try that if necessary.

I'm also planning to try a different video card. I found a deal on a GeForce 260M online, which evidently fits into the G50 chassis ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/446885-asus-g50-260m-swap-procedure.html). It should be here early next week, so I can at least see if my current card is just burning out.

My specs are:

ASUS G50VT
Windows 7 64 bit
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
Chipset is Mobile Intel PM45E
Nvidia GeForce 9800M GS

I'd greatly appreciate any ideas. If any more information would help guide suggestions, yell and I'll do whatever I can.

 

Update: Solved the BSoD problem - my 9800M GS was shot. I replaced it with an ASUS GTX 260M from ebay. Installation was easy, but getting the Nvidia driver installer to recognize the card required me to modify the INF file in the drivers to add the 260M as recognized hardware. Got the 260M's Device ID from device manager and followed instructions from a thread on the GeForce forums. Very impressed that this method worked, would never have thought of it. Driver installed fine, the card operates.

But it's hot! It idles between 58-62C according to GPU-Z, and under load it hits 110C. I've read from here that people used copper shims on the GPU die and new thermal pads on the memory nodes. Forge from this forum was saying that I think? Believe he was recommending Bergquist thermal pads.

Can anyone point me to which Bergquist pads would be optimal for GPU memory nodes? As for copper shims, what thickness am I looking for, about 1mm or so? I plan on using Shin Etsu thermal paste pretty thickly as well.

Gap Pad Products ~ Thermal Materials, Thermal Solutions ~ The Bergquist Company

The GP1500S30 seems like what I need. Thoughts and experience are greatly appreciated, thanks guys!

 

The pads should be as thin as you can get away with.