Nvidia Drivers suddenly causing BSOD

A few days ago I started getting what I've heard called "Artifacts" from my Nvidia 7800 video card on Windows Vista 32bit). The left side will have a red hue and appear close up, the right will appear far away, or I'll get weird distortions or trailing mouse syndrome. Then my monitor goes black for a minute as though adjusting resolution, and reappears with the message that my Nvidia drivers have stopped responding, and sucessfully recovered.

Despite this message, the problem persists and repeats and eventually my computer will either reset itself or need to be powered down (since I can't see the screen properly to find the shutdown commands.)

Looking at the Nvidia site, it looks as though they acknowledge the problem, and tell me to download the latest drivers. Having done so, the problem doesn't seem to be resolved. The problem is eliminated in safe-mode, but unfortunately I can't use Windows Update in safe mode (I assume thats why I can't get my "Windows Genuine Advantage validation" to work.

If someone could point me to some older, more stable drivers for my card or suggest some other help, that'd be great. Thanks much. Sorry for the long message.