Windows 7 GTX 570 crashing forcing hard reset

[anonymousal]

While playing a graphics intensive MMO my GTX 570 would sometimes fail (screen turn black) but Nvidia's desktop component would say it recovered and I'd have no further problems that day. It failed and recovered maybe 5 times since November last year. There was also one hard reset before this incident 1 month ago that didn't cause any problems after restart. Then, the other night while playing a different game though also graphics intensive my computer crashed and forced me to hard reset again. The temperature of the GPU was 61-66 degrees and the CPU 54-58 degrees at the time which seems to be well within safety range.

When I restarted the colours on the logon screen and then desktop were inverted and the resolution was 640 x 400 (sorry no screenshot). I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the GTX 570 using the device manager but the problem persisted.

Then I used Display Driver Uninstaller, restarted and re-installed the latest drivers from Nvidia's website on a custom, clean install. When I restarted there was a BSOD before the login screen. After restarting because of the BSOD I used safe mode to again DDU and restart then managed to get onto the login screen and the desktop with the on-board graphics card. But when using the on-board I see artifacts (green lines) on the login screen, desktop and programs.
Screenshot - http://i.imgur.com/TyWQPab.jpg
Here is a screenshot of temperatures and voltage while idle now - http://i.imgur.com/N1FiDzt.jpg

I turned everything off then dusted and cleaned the graphics card. Then I put the card in the second pci slot and reinstalled drivers but the same thing happened as before except no BSOD, only a black screen and auto-restart.

I was hoping I could get some help as I don't know what to do from here on. Does a hardware failure on the GPU seem likely? I replaced the PSU from a 600W to a 750W 3 months ago. The GTX 570 was bought and installed in late 2011 and is out of warranty.

Computer hardware/software, everything is factory with no overclocking:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.8GHz
Corsair CX750M (750W)
GTX 570 1280mb GDDR5
24 GB Kingston RAM
Asus Xonar Essence STX
Asus P6X58D-E Motherboard

 

[Petrossa]

The behaviour you are experiencing does seem to indicate a hardware issue.
You have done everything reasonable to troubleshoot which leads to that conclusion.

 

[anonymousal]

Could it be the motherboard instead? Some people with a similar problem reported a busted capacitor and another entirely replacing their mobo fixing their issue. The majority had people tell them to upgrade/replace their card though. I don't want to use money on a new card only to find the problem was elsewhere.

 

[Petrossa]

Based on my experience with these matters I'm fairly confident that it is the card that is at fault.
If it was the mobo, you'd constantly have issues, not only when you are stressing the graphics card.

 

[anonymousal]

For anyone coming to this page from search engines.
I first tested with a friend's older GPU and it worked fine from what I could see (no more artifacts). Then I replaced it with a new GTX 750TI and installed the included CD drivers and had no further problems. The problem was definitely the GTX 570, though I'm not sure what caused it. Thank you for your help Petrossa.

 

[Petrossa]

My pleasure