GPU Driver problem or signs of worse things coming?

[Cortexian]

Recently (I'm assuming) my display driver keeps crashing while playing BFBC2, I know it's just GPU related because I can still hear game sounds for awhile and I can continue to communicate in TeamSpeak just fine. My screens just freeze on whatever frame their on, and nothing will unlock them. Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing, Alt+Tab does nothing, etc... The only way to fix it is to restart.

This has been happening more and more frequently until I decided to try rolling back from the Nvidia 258.69 beta drivers to the 257.21 WHQL drivers. Once I rolled back I tried to re-create the problem by launching BFBC2 and I got a similar problem, instead of the screens locking up the colors ALSO distorted like so (http://leimg.lancersedge.com/images/35369317632931427656.jpg).

Ideas?

Edit/Note: Third monitor currently loaned to a friend since his broke and he was able to get an RMA, but still needed a monitor. I'm therefore not using any crazy beta Nvidia Surround features.

[Dwood]

I'm no expert but it looks to me like your GPU may be overheating(?)

[Cortexian]

Fans are manually set to 86% when gaming. One of the first things I checked.

Also this happened once at the loading screen before I even had a chance to load the map, and loading screens generally don't tend to tax your GPU... :S

[neuro]

check harddrive for integrity.

[Inferno]

I've had similar problems. While running TF2, Unreal Editor and Playing a DVD in the corner of my screen the ATI driver crashes and then reloads itself every few hours. I was taxing it pretty hard so I guess it just pooped out.

On my old computer I had problems with playing CoD4 for extended periods of time. Eventually the drivers would just crash or fuck up forcing me to restart the computer.

[Cortexian]

Well that's the thing, I've had regular display driver crashes before. They just flash my screen black a couple times, kick me back to the desktop, and give me a notification saying "The display driver stopped working and has been recovered successfully". I then just need to reinitialize any full screen applications/games.

neuro what tool do you recommend to scan my HDDs? I haven't in the longest time.

[neuro]

you can do it from the my-computer bit.

properties of your harddrive, under Extra i believe.

[Cortexian]

Seems fine according to Windows, tried a Seagate tool but it couldn't even detect my drives for some reason... The Western Digital tool I have could detect them, but it couldn't detect my WD drives because they're attached to a RAID card.

[Amit]

Oh, you haven't heard yet? BC2 causes problems like these on 25% of the computers that it comes in contact with. I had a freezing problem where the game would jump into a match and either instantly freeze or freeze up 10 minutes later. The fix? Plug in USB speakers and disable the primary sound device. That is bullshit, but it works. That problem only occurred in multiplayer. Singleplayer ran great.

This randomly started happening to you so it could be your GPU. This doesn't happen with other games, does it?

[Cortexian]

It has happened with a few other games, also tried running OCCT GPU test and it crashed multiple times.

Playing with my displays, and disabling all but one seems to have fixed the problems. Played BFBC2 for hours earlier with no issues.

[Amit]

Strange indeed. Are temperatures normal while gaming?

[Cortexian]

Yup, they near 70 degrees at their max but never go over.