Ok, so I am relatively new to linux... I have been using it off and on for the past 2 years and I have never before had this kind of problem.

First off I'll give you my hardware specs

AMD dual core 5200 socket 939
BFG Geforce 7950GT OC
I think those are the only things that could be causing the problem, if not let me know and I'll post them

So in the past I've been able to install fedora, ubuntu and without a problem and get the nvidia drivers installed. They worked fine in Feisty version of ubuntu but I decided to wait until Gusty came out to make a real switch over to linux. I can boot and install gusty fine, but when I enable restricted drivers all I get is a black screen. I thought this might just be something wrong with gusty, so I tried Suse, same problem. and finally I got Mandriva 2008 and that wont even let me get to the login screen.

It sucks because right when Im ready to make a big switch over to linux I run into this problem. If anybody can tell me what they think I should do to fix it please let me know

I think it might have something to do with the new kernel and my card not liking it... if that is the problem how do I go back to an older kernel?

If this happens immediately after you have installed your video drivers, it could just be that you are being offered an initial screen resolution that your monitor doesn't support. When you get your black screen, you can cycle through the available resolutions using <ctrl> <alt> <+>. Hopefully you will find a resolution that works for you.

I just tried doing that and it didn't do anything.

When I get the black screen at the top left I see my monitor keeps searching for analog/digital signals, after a while of searching my monitor turns off. if I hit CTRL-ALT-F2 I can get to a text session and I can see everything on there.

For Ubuntu, the following might help:
And you can check /var/log/Xorg.0.log for errors.

ok before I go doing that, what kind of errors should I be looking for? is there a designated section for errors?

Errors start with EE; possibly easiest is grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

I had a lot of problems with NVidia drivers.
I find the best thing to do is go to the NVidia UNIX page (Google for nvidia linux drivers), download all of the drivers for your platform (making note of CPU and OS), try each of them. They are not an installable package like what your package manager supplies, but they tend to work better.

If you follow this tutorial on installing the genuine Nvidia drivers you should be fine. Its for Centos 6 but should suit others with slight mods.