I see. With it happening in Safe Mode and not accepting the older driver, it might be best to try reinstalling Windows to see if this may actually be a hardware problem.
There is one other suggestion I would have before reinstalling Windows. You could try running CCleaner to see if there may be a registry error. Between Windows updates, driver updates and other program and add-on installations and updates, sometimes the registry may become corrupted. CCleaner is a reliable program that will clean up any registry errors for you.
