Nvidia drivers Flicker

This is a problem i have encountered with the last few releases of nvidia drivers. For some reason occasionally i will get a flicker that makes the whole screen sort of flash like when you degauss a screen. it happens whenever i click the advanced button in the display properties or right click the nvidia icon in the system tray. If i leave the PC for around 12 hours it tends to stop. I have uninstalled the drivers and when i run XP with no graphics drivers then it is fine and then as soon as i put them back on it starts again so i guess it must be software, anyone else experienced this?

my gfx card in an FX5900XT 128mb