Desktop Driver Issues

I've been helping my roommate with a PC build with a:
8600GT
2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo
(Motherboard model I'm not sure on)

XP Pro has been installed and works well, expect that the graphics are very slow to respond and you can basically see it redrawing. We assume this is because there are no drivers for the 8600GT.

We have tried to download the drivers from the nVidia site as well as use the XP driver search. Both times it downloads, begins to install, and then crashes just after the nVidia install prompts become full screen.

When it crashes it turns the screen entirely black and there is a little white bar in the top left hand corner (in white) that flashes much like the old DOS prompts.

Does anyone have advice for how to fix this, is it hardware or software? Should we use a different driver? It’s kind of a weird issues and we can't figure out any fix. After XP is restarted it suggest that its a videocard failed, but then says that it is often caused by other components.

 

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Nvidia drivers

also make you install you chipset drivers also

List more details of hardware mainboard make etc
ram etc

 

Just to finish this thread off, we found someone with a CD with a much older driver and installed it, it seems to have fixed the problem.