Windows 7: Geforce 8800 GTS Strange behaviour

hey all!
my 8800GTS which was installed in my brothers PC has started acting odd. In the Windows XP loading screen where the logo shows up it artifacted with blue patches/squares on screen and a blue screen momentarily showed up with something like page fault in non page area. It restarted automatically after that BSOD. I installed Win 7 x86 on it. No artifacts at all during setup but when windows detected the graphics card it rebooted automatically with no error. He's now using intel onboard and it's working okay. It was just fine the day before! No artifacts at all in the bios btw, left the bios open for 20 mins also. His system is an intel original 965 mobo, c2d e6300, 1 gb ram and the power supply is a FSP epsilon 600w (taking this psu back though since he no longer has the 8800!). I've not tried the card on my pc yet due to lack of time for all the fidgeting it would involve (exams!).

So the point of this thread is what?

I'm wondering the same thing...

OP do you actually have a question?


Try it on your PC and if stays working, then all is good.

If it begins to artifact, then it's dying.

Yeah, there is a good chance that the hardware is dying

You can try increasing the cooling on it, place a fan blowing directly at the card from outside the case for example. But if it's doing it from cold then the damage is probably already done. I lost my 8800 GTX this way. Just started flaking out visually on screen and locking up windows one day from cold boot. Had to replace the card

guess i should've been a bit more clear. i was hoping for some input regarding troubleshooting.

@fseal .. i'll try your suggestion! thanks!

edit : one complication about trying the card on my pc, i've a 4870 installed .. wouldn't installing the nvidia card cause problems? :S i just installed windows on my pc a few days ago .. wouldn't want to go through that again!!

Well if you want to try it, uninstall the drivers for your ATI card first, then shut down and replace with 8800 then do the same on the reverse just to be safe. It's 99% likely not necessary but..