This is caused by a via chipset problem where all the drivers are not loaded, you cannot reinstall the drivers because the PC crashes and they can not be installed in safe mode.

You will also note the use of Microsoft's VGAsafe driver in 'hidden devices', this is a failsafe by microsoft and is normal. It occurs when a basic VGA driver cannot be loaded.

The solution

Download the latest drivers for the motherboard chipset and graphics card.

Boot in safe mode.

extract the drivers out of the archive, sometimes running themm does this.

remove the via chipset drivers in device manager, right click and delete.

restart and reboot in safe mode.

the pc will now reinstall the drivers, you will probably find it asks for a file for 'agp to cpu', point it to the right directory for the extracted motherboard chipset drivers.

I updated the graphics card manually here before reboot.

reboot normally and then install both driver packeages to make sure all files are installed correctely.

problem fixed