Video card drivers wont "stick".

One of the screws on the backplate of my video card is a little stripped, so when i found my precision screwdriver kit, i figured id make sure it was screwed in all the way ( it was about half screwed, and i thought was creating heat issues ) i used a can of air to spray out the heatsink on the video card and the fan.

I plop it back in and reboot, first thing that happens is right after windows initial loading screen ( the one with the blue load bar going left to right repeatedly ) it gets stuck at a black screen for a long time, i leave it for a while but nothing happens(This isnt always the case sometimes after a while with different drivers it would get through the black screen but the drivers wouldnt be correctly installed), so i power it off then on again, this time it goes into windows, but it seems as if my drivers arent installed at all. I go to dxdiag and the screen goes black when i click display then ticks back on. In dxdiag it says nothing is available or enabled under display. I forgot to mention on the last reboot i installed bf2 and installed "its" directx9, even though i didnt want to because when you cancel those direct x installs during game installs sometimes it rolls back the whole installation.

So at first (before i reformatted) i thought my directx got screwy, i looked for the latest distrib and reinstalled it, then i removed my video card drivers and use NFR to make sure they were off my comp, reboot, windows boots up flawlessly without video card drivers, and performance seems almost better (when i drag windows around its less laggy if not the same). I install my favorite "xg warcat 7.4 pure" drivers ( i know they arent officially supported but they have never not worked before this ), then i reboot.

This is where my memory gets a teeny foggy (cause i installed about every version of ati's catalyst driver in existance and rebooted accordingly). Depending on what driver i would install windows would get the black screen after initial loadscreen or this new fun thing. Black screen with white text "windows has prevented something something from damaging your computer the driver was in an infinite loop something something to prevent damage to your computer. STOP 0x000000EA (0x84f44020 <--- 0's could be O's followed by 3-4 more sets of numbers in the parenthesis. Then right below that it said atidvag.

Power off power on, install ooooold catalyst drivers and they seem to click, i test direct 3d functionality and the cube is FLYING freaking fast on every dxlevel test 7-8-9, i remember it being a little slower, never the less i was overjoyed. So i slept, when i awaken i reboot because i was reinstalling Cs:Source and windows updates (since i had reformatted thinking my windows was crappin out). Reboot after "successfully" getting drivers to stick after the windows loadbar, black screen for a while then it boots and everything looks crappy and windows lag when i drag them around........

And now this is where im at, i really doubt i have physically or statically damaged my video card as it works (almost better) without any drivers installed for it, im on it right now infact. I have tryed reseating the card several times, i made sure the power cable it requires is plugged into it, i even reformatted, but nothing i do seems to fix this.

So, does anyone know where i can check my device irqs for more than 1 second when windows starts up. I noticed my agp something or video something was irq 11 and i saw some other stuff that was irq 11 (i think, it goes by too fast) and thought maybe giving it its own irq or something would help. Even though ive been running the same setup forever.

Lastly, im running
OS - xp pro sp2 w/ latest updates
video card - x800 aiw agp
memory - working patriot ddr400 pc3200
cpu - p4 2.4 533 fsb oc'd to 2.9
mobo - msi 865 neo2 pe
soundcard - audigy 2 zs

im in a real tough spot, as reformatting will nearly always fix anything for me. so i really appreciate anyone who reads through all this, and knows anything.

im off to reinstall drivers forever until they work. ill be back...
thx ~phalxor


EDIT - 2 symptoms i forgot to mention, driver installation goes really fast, way faster than normal, as if it isnt installing correctly, also 3rd party drivers (xg warcat) dont ask me to "continue anyways" with the installation as they always used to. AND my windows clock ALWAYS adjusts itself on reboot to 8 hours ahead of when it really is.

 

i feel like a moron, ive been using ie and it doesnt update the forum at all, so i could see my thread, thats why i double posted the thread, apologies

 

im a forum moron, so could you please delete THIS thread and not my other one plzplzplzplz thx ~phalxor

 

Best advice I can offer is the old standy

Make one change at a time

Make notes

Return the system to original state before next change.

 

could you please post in my other thread, i apologize for the inconvieniance but im trying to get this one deleted. i have a response for what you said, if you do that. thx

if anyone could tell me where i can remove my threads on my own that would be awesome


edit- i was going to edit my first post and just delete everything out of it and replace it with plz delete this thread but now i cant edit it....... so frustrating