Help - nVidia 8800gt drivers + vista = Vista fails to load

The Machine:

Newly Contructed, fresh install of Vista 64 Ultimate w/ SP1

Intel core 2 duo E8400 3.0
Gigabyte EP43 - DS3L w/ latest bios
4 Gig Corsair XMS ram
Asus nVidia 8000 GT 512
Seagate 7200.10 250gig
OCZ 500w PS
Soundblaster Audiy2 zs

Nothing but default/factory settings

The issue:

Just after I loaded vista I began to work on my graphics drivers. I inserted the asus driver disk and clicked DRIVERS.

1st pass this is what happened:

A few seconds later a box popped up telling me that another installation was underway and asked if I wanted to continue and wait or cancel. I clicked continue. I then got a pop up box that said something like "you can't install 32bit drivers on a 64 bit system, installation will now exit." Hmm, ok. The install window doens't close and then I get a box saying "you are attempting to install 64bit drivers on a non-64 bit system." Ok, so i clicked ok to exit. I then got a box that said. "Drivers have been installed successfully. Restart/" So I restart. Vista never loads. it just hangs in pre load stage. I restart, vista tells me that if failed to start and I load last safe configuration.

2nd attempt:

This time the install seems to be fine. No warning boxes. Restart and I end up in the same place - hang up on vista load.


Neither the 169.25 asus supplied drivers nor the nVidia official 175 drivers will work. I am certain that I am installing the 64bit drivers.


Is this a vista problem? Is there something in the bios that I should be setting differently?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Thanks for the replies.

Asus 8800 512 is the card. I tried the 64bit version on the asus disk and the official nVidia 175 64bit drivers.

My Vista has SP1 installed as well.

Hope that helps narrow it down. I have searched high and low looking for anyone with the same issues I am experiencing. So far I have found no one.

I'm having precisely the same difficulties as jeanius7, with virtually the same specs as talisker0898 (although my 8800GT is distributed by Gigabyte). I've tried everything mentioned in forums around the web, to no avail. One thing I saw was to change the clocking speed to 900, but when I use the HUD software which came with the card and click 'apply', it reverts back to the default 700. I cannot change it.
I notice that 2D works fine, as in Vista looks great and games like Runaway play perfectly. The difficulty is that with the drivers which came with the card (or which Vista installs automatically), 3D games have a painfully and unplayably slow frame rate - even in the menus. Assassin's Creed is the worst, but even Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix (a relatively low specs game) has an impossibly slow frame rate.
So far, no success. The only things I've not tried is partitioning the disk to create dual boot for XP, and installing new motherboard drivers. I will report back if either of these solve this extremely irritating problem with a brand new computer and supposedly high-end graphics card.

also use rivatuner to overclock ntune is having problems with vista