PC locks up when using 'restricted' Nvidia drivers | Geforce 8300gs

[luctor]

Since a long time Nvidia drivers don't work with my computer anymore and I've sort of given up.
Whatever Nvidia driver I install my pc locks up, sometimes immediately, sometimes after a few minutes.
I tried to install drivers via the 'restricted drivers', from the Nvidia website and almost any version I could lay my hands on, with almost any kernel I could install. All fail.
Reviewing the logs doesn't help me.

Even in my Windows partition I can't install any 'latest' drivers. On my Windows partition I have the drivers installed from the Dell website : 163.71 Vista 32bit, A02. Rarely use Windows btw.

The Nouveau drivers work fine btw and I'm even able to play the odd game of Urban Terror (although I'm no good at it)
Still, I want the proprietary to work.

Some specs :

lspci 
00:00.0 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 USB 1.1 Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 USB 2.0 Controller (rev a3)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2)
00:07.0 Bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G86 [GeForce 8300 GS] (rev a1)

If you need more , just let me know.

Rob

[papibe]

Hi luctor.

Have you tried to set it to nomodeset? If not, take a look at post #6 of this thread to see how to do it.

Regards.