Mandriva 2011

I installed Mandriva 2011, 64 bit, on a 500 gig HD, using the entire disk. After the install I went into Configure your computer, I wanted to set up auto login, and since I am the only user it showed my name and the default window manager, KDE. I then proceeded to check my hardware. Opened browse and configure hardware.Clicked on video card, and nothing happened. It should have expanded and showed the card name and version. Clicked on each item listed and no response from any one of them. Figured I would try to download an Nvidia driver for my 8400 card. Clicked on graphical desktop, and the panel on the right stayed empty.Suspiciously, I started at the top of the list, and clicked Archiving, and nothing. The same happened with Books, Development, Games, Networking, Sciences, and System. So I went to the search bar, entered Sauerbraten, and it showed up, so I downloaded the game. went back to the desktop and clicked on Sauerbraten, and the computer rebooted.
Opened a terminal, su to root, opened Kwrite, went to Etc, X11, xorg.conf, opened the file and checked the video driver, and it still had the nouveau driver. Changed it to nvidia, saved it, rebooted, and got an error. Failed to load kernel module for display driver. Got out my PartedMagic disk, loaded it into memory, went back into xorg.conf, and changed the driver back to nouveau.
My first Linux distro was Mandrake 7.2, back in 2001. I used Mandrake/Mandriva until 2006 when I found PCLOS. I stayed with PCLOS until December 2009. at that time I tried Linux Mint 10, and that is now my main distro. I would not recommend Mandriva to anyone, at this time.
The specs on my system are: MSI 750GM E51, 64 bit mobo, 16 gig DDR3, AMD 640 quad core processor, Nvidia 8400, 512 meg video card 1.5 TB HD, on board ethernet port, and a Netgear 3100 wireless USB dongle.