Graphics Card problem or does the root cause lie elsewhere?

[Baldrick1001]

PC has been running rather well, until a week ago when I experienced a lock up in CS Source. I have also had a couple of freezes with ni display on the screen, neccessitating a hard reset. The PC now seems to, randomly, "forget" the native set resolution when changing users - I have updated my bios and graphics driver, to no avail. Does this sound like a graphics card problem? I have had the card for around 16 months, fortunately it is a BFG so has a good warranty.

Any ideas or views much appreciated

Spec

Q6600 CPU
E45-U3DR MB
BFG 8800GTS 512
Corsair 620 HX
1 gig Samsung F1
500 Gig 7200.11

other odds and sods

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Could well be, if you can I would also recommend a fresh window reinstall and air dustering your pc cooling setup and gpu fan first though, as this rules out file corruption and clogged coolers.

 

[Sweeney]

Running benchmark/stress apps whilst monitoring temps would be a start before taking an air duster and windows cd to it i'd reckon?

Also worth considering is if you are running the cpu/ram/mobo/graphics card overclocked?

 

[Baldrick1001]

you'll be disappointed to know that I have no overclock.... I have a coolermaster 631 mystique case, which despite looking good, isn't particularly good at ooling. that said, tower is pretty clean and the graphics card runs at rougly 75 c whilst gaming

 

[Sweeney]

Well that rules out any overclock failling. If it was me i would run Furmark (stresses the graphics card and in doing so uses one core of yor cpu heavily) then Prime95/IntelBurnTest (stresses cpu and depending on settings, ram) whilst having a look at temps (CoreTemp/Realtemp are good apps for that). Before running either of those though i would run Memtest86+ overnight to rule out ram issues.

Depending on the results of the above you could also try swapping parts between PC's if possible (family/friends pc etc).

It is possible and likely the OS has corrupted at some level given the hard reboots but it's pointless trying to install a fresh copy on an unstable system.