[GeForce 6] NX6800GT-TD256 Freezes with "snow", nv4_disp.dll loops

Question

I have had this card running successfully for a while now and I was surprised when it suddenly stopped working.  After a very short time (particularly in games, but just as often on the desktop) the display locks up with a fine spray of snow over the screen.  A few times the system goes to a blue screen saying that nv4_disp.dll is caught in an infinite loop. From what I have seen on my searches on the forums, this seems to be an overheating related problem, except that the card is stone cold to the touch (the control panel displays 72 degrees just before the crash, but that is inflated slightly apparently).
I have tried a number of approaches, including installing the 71.84 reference drivers and downclocking the card (a lot).  Disabling fast writes and AGP 4 doesn't seem to help either.  Nothing that I have tried seems to work, although running the card at a lower resolution (1024x768 instead of 1280x1024) seems to increase the amount of time that I get to use my computer (from about 40-100 seconds to about 5 minutes).
I have filled out an RMA form, but I don't know where to look to find the serial number, I have a fair number of options:
- The large barcode (and on the box): 4 719072009076 and 912-8966-0050410900162 (The number on the box is the same, although 912-8966-005 is repeated).
- Near the DVI and VGA plugs: 4A920100070053ZZ
- On the opposite end there are three numbers: 0064104001972, 900-10201-0007-250 E, and 600-10201-0007-210 Z.
The RMA site doesn't include this information, it only includes information on how to find the serial number on a motherboard.
Any help would be appreciated, I'll fill the RMA with all the numbers if I have to.

Answer 1

We've been plagued by similar problems lately, and it seems the nVidia drivers may be causing problems.
We have been using a Jaton Video118PCI-64DDRTV (or variations - basically a GeForce 4/MX440 GPU) for a few years now in our systems. Just lately we have had problems with systems freezing, or with nv4disp.dll errors etc. One fault mode is the left side of the screen is "fuzzy", while the right hand side has vertical lines on it.
Anyway, after experimenting with various drivers, including the original Jaton 2.1.8.1, the Jaton 4.x.x.x drivers currently supplied with the cards, and the fairly recent nVidia 71.84 drivers (all of which fail with at least one hardware combination), we downloaded the latest drivers from the Jaton website. These are also V71.84, but have presumably been adapted from the nVidia drivers by Jaton to suit their exact hardware configuration. So far, the Jaton drivers seem to fix the problem (but we're still testing...).
One suggested cause is that somehow the nVidia drivers are causing the GPU or other components to overheat, causing memory errors and freezing. Some of the pictures posted by emptyweevil and others suggest graphics memory errors to me.
Anyway, it might be worth trying the MSI website for better drivers, or even rolling back to the ones provided with the card.
It seems that Windoze has an appalingly rude habit of deciding that it will update drivers without notice. Unfortunately, newer ain't always better. {Anyone know how to turn this "feature" off?} So maybe the old drivers will solve the problem.
Anyway, I thought I'd share our experiences, in case it helps someone else.
Cheers