For the past few days my computer has been crashing, and restarting several times before loading the login screen. It happens even when not playing games, and especially when turning it on.

I've had a mixture of errors that all appear to be connected. The main two are: 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER and that Nvidia driver could not complete a drawing operation.

My computer is:
Pentium 4 Cpu 3.20GHZ
512mB Ram
Nvidia GeForce FX 5500

I also have several minidumps I can include if anyone thinks they would help (I don't know how to read them myself).

Try rolling back your drivers...

-To do this, go to the START menu, then right-click on MY COMPUTER and click on properties in the drop-down menu. Then click on the HARDWARE tab and then click on DEVICE MANAGER. Then find your driver under DISPLAY ADAPTERS. Then click on PROPERTIES in the drop-down menu, and then click on the DRIVER tab. Lastly click on ROLL BACK DRIVER.

If you have been running the current drivers without a problem and then the problem started, you don't need to roll back the drivers to a previous version. You can uninstall the current drivers and then reinstall them. This should take care of the problem. Unless a problem starts as soon as you install updated drivers, you don't need to go back to a previous version. With the FX 5200, I really wouldn't go above version 84.21, or you'll receive the error message from the NVIDIA Control Panel on startup about SLI configuration not being connected or utilized (can't remember the exact phrasing), which can't be turned off and becomes a real nuisance. This is a problem with NVIDIA drivers above that version if you aren't running dual cards in SLI.

THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER is related to the infinite loop problem. The GPU accesses a section of memory that doesn't "close" properly -- the section therefore remains open, sending a bit of info constantly. After a certain amount of time, the card fails.

I don't remember the exact location, but there's a small software fix somewhere that permanently closes access to the memory location pointed to by the GPU. Nonetheless it's a crap shoot as to whether it works.

When I called ASUS about my problem with it, the tech immediately told me to update the BIOS. If you haven't done so, I'd estimate with a bit of confidence that this will fix the problem, as the BIOS updates close the accessed/pointed memory location.

Well I've said this a lot resently. But I'll say it again. Try using Omega Drivers.