Graphics drivers; OpenGL 3.1

[Arbor plena simia]

Hi folks.
Got a little problem with OpenGL 3.1 on my computer. I managed to get Brink installed (finally!) but apparently my graphics card/driver combo doesn't support OpenGL 3.1 as required for the game. No worries I thought, the card is supported so I'll just update the drivers. And therein lies the problem.
I have an Nvidia 8800M GTX in an Alienware M15x, running Vista 32-bit. It would appear that through some sort of witchcraft on Alienwares part, the most advanced driver I can install is the 186 build which only supports up to OpenGL 3.0. 195 supports GL 3.2, but anytime I install a driver more recent than 186, I get error 43 and windows shuts off my graphics card., so I have to rollback to the 186 driver.
After a lot of research, it seems that Alienware have fiddled with the GPU and it does not support any later driver updates.
So my question is, does anyone know any way around this such as custom drivers, anyway to get OpenGL 3.1 working with my current driver, or even playing Brink without OpenGL 3.1 etc?
I have tried every newer driver Nvidia says my card supports (through the Nvidia site), and a couple of custom ones to no avail; everytime my graphics card is shut off with error 43.

The closest I can get is Alienware doing custom drivers, but for a fee, which I think's outrageous

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Kaelan002]

Have you tried manually editing the config file for brink (if there is one), there are often options that cant be adjusted ingame, you may be able to turn it off / switch to another method like that.