New system, blue screen of death

[ffooby]

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill Challenger-U3 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 650W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply


So, I'm not sure how to approach my problem or exactly how to present it. My brother helped me build this computer. I fired it up and within the first few hours, it was crashing. I didn't have the graphics card at first - I was just working off of onboard graphics and it would crash seemingly randomly, to me. I wouldn't be doing anything demanding besides playing a youtube video or such. Wasn't because of heat or extreme demand. I could use my computer, but it would feel unstable. I ran memtest, and it didn't seem to pick up anything.

Fastforward to a couple of days later, I get my graphics card. I figure maybe my computer will work better now because I will have that instead of onboard graphics, but now I get blue-screening. I've yet to play any games. I haven't stressed the card or my system at all, so I'm not sure what's crashing it.

My bios is up to date. I have all of my windows updates, although my computer crashed a few times during some of them. I believe I have all of my other drivers, but I can't be 100% sure. Is there any other information to check?

Thanks for any help.

 

[ffooby]

I checked the RAM. I booted up using one stick, separate times, and I would still crash. So I don't think that's the issue. When I got my graphics card, I went in and turned off my internal graphics. After that, I couldn't even log into windows for more than a minute without blue screening. Of course this sounds like a graphics card problem, which would be fine, but I crashed a handful of times before I even put the graphics card in, although those weren't blue screens.

Does anyone know what else to check for, besides just looking at the graphics card? I'm fine with getting a new one, but I'd love for my system to be stable everywhere else when I get a new one. I'm just not sure how to check every area.

 

[ffooby]

Please, can anyone offer any insight? This is why I'm not completely set on the idea that the graphics card can be the problem:

I see I have new windows updates to install. It starts installing most of them - updates for windows .Net framework, gets near the end, and just crashes. I've had a lot of problems with windows updates - it's what would crash my computer the most before I had the graphics card. There was no blue screen.

This is my first new computer in 6 years. I was pumped for it, and now it's so unstable, so it's very stressful. I would love any help.