video problem after sys restore

i rebooted my computer today because i was having some issues with graphic lag in games, thinking it was just a mem issue or something and figured it needed a reboot anyways. once i got back in i logged into my user name, and about 5 sec after my desktop came up, the screen went black. this same thing happened two more times.

i rebooted into safe mode and did a system restore back to the first of the month (the last time i'd rebooted my comp before when i updated my vid driver, the suspected problem to begin with) since i knew it didnt have any problems then. the restore finishes, computer restarts, gets to the login, and works fine, no black screen. i go to open the game i was playing before this mess, and i get a blue screen. the game had recently patched so i just assumed it was an issue with that, but in no mood to reinstall it i just decided to play wow, same problem... both had been patched recently so i uninstalled them and started downloading the installer for them again since i had no disk for it and decided to watch a movie. i open the movie, wmp pops up, and i get another blue screen.

i've run spybot, my nod32 anti-virus, and ccleaner (registry portion) trying to find if it's a virus or something, but everyone comes black clean. the vid card is a nivida 7300gs, my direct x is 9.0c (5.3.2600.2180) running windows xp MCE w/ service pack 2. anyone have any thoughts as to what might be the problem? i'm afraid to reinstall the latest vid drivers since i have a feeling that's what caused all these problems to begin with.

edit:
just checked and i can play videos off sites like youtube just fine, so it seems it's only videos/games that're on my computer that're causing this.