I need help with a really weird pcie x16 slot problem.

Hello everybody. I am having a really hard time trying to get my pcie x16 slot to work properly. I have an Abit IP35-E and in x16 slot is an 8800gt.

Everything was working fine until one day when I turned on my computer, everything would turn on except my monitors would have no signal. I first checked for loose connections, all were ok. I tested the monitors and the video card with another computer and they were fine.

I stuck another another video card (Radeon 7000 I think) in the ip35e and I would get the same problem. Next I tried putting a regular pci video card, which worked perfectly. In windows, I am able to see the Radeon as a vga adapter with no drivers. Cool I thought, I was getting somewhere, but after installing drivers and rebooting,

(1) With only the Radeon installed, I would get no signal from the monitors, same as the 8800gt
(2)With the pci video card installed, Windows will freeze or give me a blank screen while booting.

I noticed that these two problems will start after I install the respective drivers for the video card in the x16 slot.

Now, I understand that my mobo might just be hosed... But I don't have warranty, and well Abit kinda died so I have not been able to get to their website. Does anyone know if I can fix my motherboard, or if there is a diagnostic tool (free hopefully) that I can run to see what's up? After trying to google everything I can, I have yet to find an answer. Any help is appreciated.

Yea I did. Everything works fine except for that slot. It just seems like a waste to me... Thanks for your help.

Yea, I've been looking around on newegg... Probably gonna go for an evga, xfx, or something with lifetime warranty. Right now I am just being lazy and lifetime warranty doesn't come that cheap.

Going Intel. I was thinking about the EVGA 113-YW-E115-TR. But I've looked around the net, and a lot of people seem to have problems with this board. The Geforce 9300 chipset seems to have everything I need, but I also want lifetime warranty. XFX's 9300 is mATX =(

I don't need SLI. Both actually look pretty nice. I've looked around at the nForce chipset, are they really bad? I would like to have lifetime warranty, and possibly integrated graphics. I'll probably go for the gigabyte tho. Thanks for your help.