BSOD in Windows Display Driver Timeout

I've just gotten a BSOD saying my display driver timed out while I was in windows. The monitors lost their image, and began searching the various ports for a connection, then the BSOD showed up. This is the first time I've actually seen it happen, but I believe it has happened before since I have come back to see my computer has rebooted/shutdown.

This OS is a Full Retail fresh install as of about two weeks ago. The system is brand new as of about 2 weeks ago. The only pieces I've retained from my former computer (which was about 3 years old) are the power supply, some hard drives, and the keyboard. Any other information should be listed in my system specs.

I'm planning on overclocking, but I want to get this BSOD sorted out before I do.

Thank you.

"It's not a true crash, in the sense that the bluescreen was initiated only because the combination of video driver and video hardware was being unresponsive, and not because of any synchronous processing exception".

Since Vista, the "Timeout Detection and Recovery" (TDR) components of the OS video subsystem have been capable of doing some truly impressive things to try to recover from issues which would have caused earlier OSs like XP to crash.

As a last resort, the TDR subsystem sends the video driver a "please restart yourself now!" command and waits a few seconds.

If there's no response, the OS concludes that the video driver/hardware combo has truly collapsed in a heap, and it fires off that stop 0x116 BSOD.

If playing with video driver versions hasn't helped, make sure the box is not overheating.

Try removing a side panel and aiming a big mains fan straight at the motherboard and GPU.

Run it like that for a few hours or days - long enough to ascertain whether cooler temperatures make a difference.

If so, it might be as simple as dust buildup and subsequently inadequate cooling.

I would download cpu-z and gpu-z (both free) and keep an eye on the video temps CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

STOP 0x116: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR troubleshooting

I'm fairly confident it isn't a heat issue. The video card is new, and there is no dust in the case, with the temp remaining below 40C while at the desktop. I also only had word up at the time, so I wasn't gaming (I haven't had this error happen when I was gaming, it has only been occurring when the computer was on and at the windows desktop or in an application). I do have the latest catalyst drivers, I suppose I could try some previous driver versions, but it seems like the BSOD is quite difficult to replicate (my computer had been on for about 8 hours before this happened). I'll check out that link and see if I can figure anything out using that information.

Thank you.