Ubuntu dapper nvidia failure

I've been running dapper without any problems for several months, but after a recent kernel update, my X configuration stopped working.

I didn't reboot immediately after applying the kernel update, so I don't really remember when the update was applied and thus what it was.

And perhaps the update has nothing to do with the problem because I can't even get any video signal during the Bios part of the boot. Also, there is a long beep during boot.

Everything else seems to be working properly. Perhaps I need to get a new video card.

I tried removing and re-inserting the video card, but no luck. Here is an interesting line from dmesg:

[   43.611885] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[   43.615672] NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter found!

Here is what lshw sees:

root@weasel:/var/log# lshw | grep product
    product: MS-7125
       product: MS-7125
          product: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
          product: ( )
             product: None
             product: None
             product: None
             product: None
          product: CK804 Memory Controller
          product: CK804 ISA Bridge
          product: CK804 SMBus
          product: CK804 USB Controller
             product: OHCI Host Controller
                product: Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical
                product: hp LaserJet 1160 series
          product: CK804 USB Controller
             product: EHCI Host Controller
          product: CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller
          product: CK804 IDE
                product: LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1693S
          product: CK804 Serial ATA Controller
             product: ST3250823AS
             product: ST3250823AS
          product: CK804 Serial ATA Controller
          product: CK804 PCI Bridge
             product: 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang]
          product: CK804 Ethernet Controller
          product: CK804 PCIE Bridge
          product: CK804 PCIE Bridge
          product: CK804 PCIE Bridge
          product: CK804 PCIE Bridge
          product: K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
          product: K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
          product: K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
          product: K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control

Again, no video card. The card that it isn't detecting is an nvidia geforce 6600. At least, that's what was previously working in my xorg.conf.