P172x fx x86 vista 8800m gts - troubles...

My MB cooked in my laptop about a month ago. Gateway repaired it under warranty and of course wiped the hard drives. Since its return I have had tons of issues with the video driver and performance...black screen, lcd shutting off, BSOD, video errors. These have all occured totally randomly it seems. Some while playing eq2, some while opening outlook or IE. Even froze/crashed moving icons on the desktop. I have tried recent drivers from nvidia, laptops2go and many others. I then resorted to installing older ones (via laptops2go and nvidia), working my way back to 175.70 each time using the prescribed method of removal (through CP and then sweeper) and installation. None have seemed to clear up the problem. I have attached the windows score just to give you an idea of the performance issues involved. Notice the graphics memory etc...yikes!

I have also thoroughly cleaned the system (antispyware, sbybot, malware removal, combofix..etc) to make sure it wasn't something foreign.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated.
Thank you all.

 

Gateway sent me the driver for generic windows. The tech even said spefically "do not remove the previous driver before installing this one"...odd huh?
Anyway, the black screen crashing and driver errors have stopped, but the game performance is just plain sad...It doesn't lockup, but 10-25fps in eq2 with a performance setting is nothing like it was pre-motherboard repair.
Any comments?
Thanks

 

You should PM AndrosForever about this. He may recommend you to flash a fresh GPU BIOS.

 

Will do. Thanks for the advice.

 

I would give the newest Nvidia driver a shot, it works perfectly on my P-171x FX. I would not use the moded drivers on the 8800's if your having issues.

The one Nvidia shows for your GPU: 179.48
NVIDIA DRIVERS 179.48 BETA

The one I run on that GPU: 260.99
NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.99 WHQL

Runs WOW, COD4, and EQ2 with no issues.

 

Cool Flynazz. I'll give the 260.99 one last shot. I'm thinking if I still have issues Gateway put in a lemon card with the motherboard replacement. I never had these troubles befre then.
Thanks again.

 

Thanks all for the help and suggestions, especially Flynazz, thanks dude. The 260.99 was fail. Actually produced far worse results than the one gateway supplied. EQ2: 10-15 fps on high performance is just lame. Trying the 179.48 now.

 

Update:
The 179.48 is a no go. No compatible driver / hardware during installation.
I just don't get it. This laptop ran like a champ before I had Gateway work on it, now it's a complete turd. I really was a fan prior to this...sad The driver errors and bsod are gone but it sure as heck isn't a gaming laptop anymore...I basically have an 8+ pound web surfer....
That aint gonna cut it, I think its time to bite the bullet for the Asus A1.....