XPS 410 with Nvidia 7300LE - Video HW or Driver Issue?

I have a XPS 410 with an Nvidia 7300LE video board.  I have been following along now for a few weeks on different threads with how to resolve issues related to the 7300LE.

However, I have not been successful in resolving my issue which is:

ISSUE:  Received Blue Screen with the message "The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop.  This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the HW incorrectly.....

Tech Info:   ***Stop: 0x000000EA

                   nv4_disp

I know a lot of you have seen this before.  I have already tried removing the existing driver and updating it with the latest one from the Nvidia site.  I also tried installing the driver that came with my XPS system 2 years ago.  Each time I remove the driver and update it I am still running into the same problem with not being able to use the XPS 410 unless I am in Safe Mode. 

1.  How do I determine if this is a true HW issue with the 7300LE? 

2.  How do I determine if this is a Driver Issue? 

  a.  If this is a driver issue, does anyone have a written step-by-step process I can follow?  I have gone through the process to install a new driver based on other threads but I guess I am still doing something wrong. (NOTE:  I did get GeForce Release 178, version 178.24 WHQL installed at one point.  I rebooted back in "normal" mode and I was off and running for about 3 hours until I decided to change the screen resolution from 800 x 600 to 1024 x 768.  Once I did that, I immediately got the Blue screen mentioned above.  I have not been able to get back to that point again.)

 Thanks for all the help in advance.