Windows 7 Constantly Crashing

Hey guys, So being the genius I am. I went to buy Windows 7 last weekend.

It seem to install fine but got hung on setting up the Graphics Card, so I just restarted it and all seemed well.

When I first booted into Windows 7 and starting piddling around. It crashed. Just straight up crashed, no BSOD or anything.

I then tried re-installing the Nvidia Driver about 3 times. It still crashes, it just stops. No error messages or anything.

It normally crashes when I try to use Firefox or Windows Media Player and it seems like if I disable Aero effects it doesn't crash at all.

What the hell is going on? I got a XFX Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT OC. Any recommendations.

Which Nvidia driver are you trying to use? You didn't say if you was using the
32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows 7 you will need to match the driver to the
version you are using. Also don't use the Windows update version of the Nvidia
driver it just doesn't want to work correctly. I have a evga 9800GT in my system
and use the 64 bit version of Windows 7 drivers from the Nvidia site and have no
problems at all.

Repair installation maybe? Win7 is supposed to allow a video driver crash without adversely affecting everything else that is running. You've got something seriously out of whack.

This computer was running the previous operating system without issues I take it?

Edit: I agree with getit29 about downloading the drivers directly from Nvidia. I had to do something similar for my ATI video drivers.

Yes I'm using the x64 of Nvidia's latest driver.

Also my last operating system (Xp) had no problems what so ever.

I will most likely re-install Windows 7, do you guys know if Re-Installing will remove my Windows.old folder? I have all my backups on it and I really don't want to put it on another hard drive.

Are you sure you have enough RAM?

I have 5.5 GB of Ram, that's plenty.

I believe that if it were me I'd go ahead and move/copy the Windows.old folder to another drive before
doing a re-install of 7 just to be on the safe side. I would also do a complete format on the drive before
installing 7 again just to start with a clean drive. That way you know there isn't any old drivers/programs
lurking in the shadows of the background since you didn't do a full format to jump up later and cause you
problems especially since you had XP on there before you installed 7.

I had this same issue also when I was using the Windows 7 pre-release, where XP ran fine all day but Windows 7 would cause a total lock-up (no mouse moving) after a short period of use.

In my case, it turned out to be faulty nVidia card, as once I replaced it, the OS did not hang again since.

In my opinion, the reason my PC ran stable on XP is that XP does not use any 3D effects, where as Vista & Windows 7 both use 3D rendering for the Aero.

One thing you can try doing is running a graphics card stress test tool on Windows XP (link here). If this causes Windows XP to hang or report a stability issue, then your graphics card itself is likely at fault.