New O/s New Install, Freezes?

Hi everybody,
First off i am new to these forums so wasn't sure where to put my post so if an admin member could move it to the correct section for me i'd appreciate it.

I have built a new system for the first time, specs are in my sig, and have made the decision to use 64bit Vista as this is my gaming pc and wanted to use all available ram.
Now for my problem! I have installed the O/s and downloaded all available updates. However, when i go to install some programs my windows freezes, i can't even bring up the task manager and end up having to do a hard re-start. I tried to solve this problem by downloading the latest drivers for my hardware but the same problem occurs, halfway through my system freezes. This was the case for installing my mobo drivers. As i have managed to instal some games and can play them fine i would really like to get to the bottom of my problem so i can get it in good running order.
I re-tried all installs under admin mode but still no luck. Any help with my problem would be greatly appreciated or if you need any more info then please ask.
Thank you

i'd check your bios settings , memory and check for updated drivers. cause i think there the main 3 things that cause the lockups.
scrooge

Thanx for your reply,
would i check for the updated drivers from my actual bios or from the hardware manager on control panel?

look in the bios and check to see that the settings are right like ( cpu , memory) .
check msi's website (MSI Support )
for your motherboard drivers.check nvidia's website
( Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers ) for your Geforce 8800gts drivers.
scrooge

Hi again,
Thanks to Scrooge for replying before.
I have re-formatted and reinstalled again and everything went fine for a few days then i decided to install the Motherboard drivers from the MSI site. The same old problem started again. My comp never froze before i installed the mobo driver!
What am i looking at here? could it be a defective mobo, (it is ok untill i install the drivers for it), dodgy drivers (they are the official ones for the board from the main msi site). Would i be missing out on anything if i just didnt install the mobo drivers and use my comp as it is? Would there be any performance issues?
Thanks for your time.