Sure, try later versions that are at least WHQL certified by Microsoft. They tend to be the more stable ones. Also with the generation of card you are using, it doesn't make sense to go to the very late model driver sets, as they tend to be optimized for the GeForce 3's and don't always work very well on earlier cards.
Give the 14.10's a shot and see what happens. I think those are "official" and WHQL certified versions.
However, I am suspecting something else is going on here. It doesn't seem right that the video drivers would cause such an on/off problem like that. Are you very up to date with virus scanning software? Are you running anything in the background that could be causing problems?