Constant crash-to-desktop with my new GTX260...

Soo, I use to dabble on SL with an old GT8800 512mb video card, and never had any problems... Save for the occasional crash here and there (SL in my experience, has never been a very reliable program as far as crashing go. It's crashed on me left and right for years, over 3 computers.)

My 8800 died about a month ago, and I upgraded to a much prettier GTX 260... Obviously the first thing I did was jack up all my video settings to see how it'd run. And it ran great, as it should!

However, I'm now experiencing very, very frequent crashing. It's more common in busy places / places with flashy lights and sounds, but the fact that it's happening -at all- is irritating me. It'll start out acting normally, then the sound will start to loop, just once or twice per sound. Sometimes it stops, but only before getting worse. Other times, it just gets worse. Sounds will start looping more and more, until finally, SL just locks up completely, and crashes to desktop. I've sent in error reports, but who knows if they'll be of any use.

I can run Left 4 Dead on totally maxed settings, maxed out anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, on 1680x1050 without so much as a stutter,; Crysis with mods to force the graphics settings beyond "high" with an average 30-40fps; but SL -still- can't be handled? What's going on here? Furthermore, when I first installed this video card, SL said it didn't even recognize what type it was. Does SL have no idea better cards than 8800s exsist now?

Anywho, there's my rant, and there's my problem. I'll upload more system specs, and hopefully someone'll be able to help me

Windows XP Professional (5.1, build 2600) (pretty sure it's SP3)
Motherboard: DX38BT
Processor: Intel Core2Quad CPU q6600 @ 2.40 (4 CPUs)
Memory: 2046mb RAM DDR3
Videocard: XFX GeForce GTX260 896mb 666mhz ... More info can be found http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150330 and I'm currently running the 182.08 drivers.
Edit: Corsair 750w PSU (don't have the exact one here, but, it's a nice PSU)

If there's any info I forgot to include, please let me know!

Try kicking the GPU memory back to 256 and see if it helps.. that's what I have read anyway. I almost bought that card to replace the old 7900 but it seemed more for auto cad stuff (do you have any links to what ones are more for gaming?

I believe I already tried that, and saw no improvement. Should I kick it back further? And shouldn't the fact my card has 896mb on it mean I should be able to set that at 512? :l

It's the drivers from nvidia, my wife is experiencing the same issue right now with her 295