Please help weird pixels pattern crash (event id 6008,41 kernel power)

[22EC1987]

hello
Please help

i bought the computer last year, there were no problems playing games, everything with it was fine but 2-3 mothes ago the pc started to act not properly, games are crashing (when i still had win xp) randomly 5-10 minutes into the game sometimes even after 1+- hour or so along with a weird pixels artifact pattern all over the screen :

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/3852/crashm.jpg

even after i reformat my pc and installed win 7 the crashing problem still remains, so i
suspect that it might be something to do with the bios or hardware problem (maybe dust?)

"event viewer" logs relating to the crash are
event id : 6008
event id : 41 kernel power

* the crashes used to occur when i was playing games now its even worse it can happen also at the desktop.

* the windows i have now (win 7) is not the problem because the crash problems started at the time i had win xp.

* i read somewhere that updating the bios might fix it?

* i read also at many sites that raising the voltage of core can help make the pc more stable should i do it? (its a risk but it may fix it)

* there is alot of dust in my pc maybe its causing the gpu to heat or to act faulty?

* the problem remained even after i reformat and did a fresh install of win 7. (sound and video drivers are all up to date)

* when my pc crashed at desktop i opened windows in "safe mode" and the windows opened just fine no crash there
so i guess the problem isnt anything but the gpu probably.

* no BSOD and no error massage at all when crashing.

* i allready sent the computer to a technician and he said that he checked the pc and that no hardware problems were found.
__________________________________________

my specs are :

GTX 280 OC Asus - gpu

Asus p5Q pro - motherboard

intel Q9550 quad core - processor

windows 7 ultimate 64 bit - os

corsair 8GB - ram

corsair TX 750 W - psu

 

[Nitestick]

Check that the fan on the graphics card is working, if you overclock it then take off the overclock. I think that you have a bad graphics card though. Drivers seem unlikely to be the cause due to it occurring under both XP and 7.

i read also at many sites that raising the voltage of core can help make the pc more stable should i do it? (its a risk but it may fix it)

I reccommend strongly against this, if either a CPU or a GPU needs overvolting to be stable i would call it a bad part and return it. There should be no need to go outside default specs unless overclocking...and i've managed to overclock and undervolt so good parts should have no trouble running at normal specifications.

 

[22EC1987]

thanks for replying

the fan on the card is working i allready checked it and i didnt do any overclock so i think its not the problem.

i suspect that the video card got faulty somehow and that its the cause of the crashes although the technician claimed that the pc hardware is ok i doubt that .

i noticed yesterday that if i uninstall the graphic drivers suddenly i can log into windows with no problem so my guess is that it must be the video card or the drivers or some setting mixed with the operation of the card and the drivers that is causing it to crash randomly.

as for the voltage thing i allready raised abit the voltages of some components in the bios and it didnt fix anything so i changed it back to "auto".

BTW some guy had a similar strange pattrern crashes also and he said that cleaning the video card with a compressed air solved his crashing problem
Computer crashes - strange pattern displayed on screen - Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern - Penny Arcade Forums

 

[22EC1987]

i think that it is fixed finally!
i sent the pc to the technician 2nd time it stayed there for about two weeks and the technician finally fixed it (i think)
he said that the ram wasnt properly configured in the bios(AI Tweaker) and
that it should have been 5-5-5- 15 and NOT 5-5-5 - 18 so this was probably the cause for the crashes but only time will tell.

*every ram company has its own specific factory numbers mine is corsair.

 

[Nitestick]

If it's all running well then that is good but that doesn't sound likely to have been the cause either, memory should have no problem running stable at "looser" (higher) latencies.

 

[22EC1987]

unfortunately you are right
i dont believe it but it wasnt the cause for the problems today it crashed again im just lost

 

[22EC1987]

finally i really sorted the problem out ... it was my GTX280 OC graphics card (being faulty)

i suspected that my pc shop technician didnt do their job and i was right
so i took my pc to a local technician and i told him that i suspect that the graphics card is the problem so he tested it with another card (good&proper card) and the problem disappeared

then i called the pc shop support and told them about the faulty card and they gave me a temporary gpu card and from then on for 3-4 weeks my pc didnt crash anymore, now after they checked the card they did find that it was really a bad and fauly one so finally they gave me a ati HD5850 card (bcs theyre out of gtx280 oc stock)

never trust them if you did anything to fix your problem and it didnt help including even formatting the pc and updating everything then the fault is gotta be probably at one of the hardware parts