Possibly problem with graphics card / driver - details inside

Hey everyone, (vista x64)

So about a week ago I downloaded the 197.13 driver for my Geforce 8800 GT (g92).Curiously a few days later while playing a BETA game (APB) I started getting these fuzzy blue blocks around 2mm by 6mm all over my screen, and then it would freeze. When it freezed I couldn't bring up task manager or do anything software wise to hit the off button, then it would load the SO fine then start to happen again (blue bars and crashing) then it worse and worse every restart until it wouldn't load the OS (at the point after the LOAD bars of the OS, but wouldn't open the LOGIN screen just a black screen).

What I have tried:

So I downloaded a new set of nvidia drivers (196.21) and went around installing the new ones:

- I went to device manager, display adaptor and un-installed the drivers there.

- I reset the PC and ran in safe mode.

- I used 'driver cleaner pro' to completely get rid of all remains of the old driver files

- I re-set the PC in safe mode, then installed the new drivers

- Reset again but this time ran it in normal mode

However after I install the new drivers, it will freeze after loading the operating system but before the login screen, and will sometimes crash to blue screen (not the blue screen of death, it had some text).

I tried putting the card into my friends PC, and we installed the new drivers, however when we rebooted, the same problem persisted.

If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate any help. It looks so far to be a hardware problem.

If anyone has any questions or any more info they need feel free to ask as I will be watching the thread.

Thanks for your help