I purchased a new motherboard and it works. Surprising as the one that failed was 3 months old. Any suggestions on the process of warranty returns?

Correct, VGA works until I install a driver normal mode, search for hardware changes within devices menu or safe install drivers with a reboot.

Tried another slot. Same issue.

Hello, thanks for your reply.
I used DDU in safe mode, disabling driver updates. Still same problem once the older driver was manually installed.
I also switched out my windows tools USB, tried...

Long story short: After a fresh windows install, whenever I try to use my GPU with a Nvidia driver (via GeForce or windows driver update), I get stuck in startup diagnostic loops.

Rig
CPU: i7...