Hey everyone, hope you guys are having a good Friday. 
 
So this is the first time I ever built my own rig and things went pretty smoothly with the hardware installation, I had a veteran PC building friend help me out to make sure that everything was seated and cabled properly. I installed Win7 Home Edition (OEM) pretty smoothly as well.
 
So this is where things started to get weird. Upon turning on the PC for the first time I immediately notices red spots/dots speckled all over the black and white start up screens you get as well as the windows start up screen and on my desktop (the go away and move around when I mouse over them). At first I thought it might not be a big deal and will clear up once I get all the video drivers and etc installed. I was so very wrong.
 
Basically from that point on I set up my Win7 stuff and decide to install the video card drivers and immediately problems occur. Upon installing the new drivers and restarting, my computer BSOD’ed on me. I couldn’t catch the entire error but these were the 2 things I got from it. The error was related to nvlddmkm.sys and the other piece I caught was 0x00000116 (after a quick Google search it was linked to possible faulty video card RAM). Also side note: Aside from BSODing sometimes the PC will turn on and just hang at a black screen and a few times I got a white screen with scrambled colors on it.
 
After this occurred I thought it might have been some kinda error on my part so I reformatted and tried it all over again and the same thing occurred. The only way out of this BSOD was to log in in safe mode and delete that .sys file or add a .old at the end of it. I really tried everything I could, I tried using the driver discs, the drivers on the website, reformatting, safemode, I tried reseating the video card and trying the other slots as well as checking to make sure that everything is properly connected… The other noteworthy thing I noticed was in device manager there was a yellow ! near the video card and it said something along the lines of the drivers are corrupted or missing and then it said (code 39).
 

try this:
http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=586183
 

i was recieving BSODS cause of the hard ware conflict between my onboard sound and the hd sound device on the card

Dunkin, Thanks a lot. I will try that out. Been reading around more and seems like your post was linked on various forums.
 
Sawacki, Like I stated in post, this is my first home built PC so I don't have another card I can test out :( and I don't believe this MB has integrated video in it.

your very welcome.. if you need any other assistance please let me know

I uninstalled all the nvidia drivers and did a fresh reinstall of them and upon restarting my PC... It just BSOD's on me. It's so weird. The only way I can get out of the blue screen is if I boot up in safe mode and change nvlddmkm.sys to nvlddmkm.sys.old
 
Also, I just put this rig together 2 days ago and even when I tried doing the mobo drivers first, it still did the same thing. I reformatted several times as well.
 
The reason why I'm leaning towards dying card is because of these weird spots all over the screen, all the start up screens and then on my desktop. I took a fuzzy cellphone pic of it yesterday but idk if that will help. Like I read other people having the same issue but no one ever mentioned having the weird fragmented/artifact looking things.
 
I just got a new asus monitor too. When I hook it up to my laptop with the same cable, it's flawless, not a single issue so I ruled out that being a problem.

please tell me what the errors are in "problem reports and solutions" under control panel in relation to your video card

the error message also might mean that you have a corrupt driver installation file.. where did you get the driver? from nvidia or off the disk from evga?

dunkinkid22

the error message also might mean that you have a corrupt driver installation file.. where did you get the driver? from nvidia or off the disk from evga?

Get your drivers from here http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us Make sure your downlaoding the correct drivers (32bit for 32 bit OS, 64bit for 64bit OS) if your not sure have EVGA support help you.

One last thing! lol ..... You should add your Systems specs to your signature like dunkinkid22 and I have. It makes it easier for people to help you. You can add that info in the USERCP at the top of the forums.

Update? did you fix it?

This sounds similar to the problem I am having with my GTX470 SC, except I am getting artifacts when starting Windows, even after a reformat and fresh install. I made a thread about it when it started happening on Tuesday, but have yet to find a solution.

Quick update: It WAS a defected gtx 470 for sure. My friend brought over his spare 285 and it works like a charm. Everything is fine. I'm currently gonna use this card and RMA the 470 and cross my fingers for better luck.
 
Thanks for the help everyone :)

I had the same problem as you and it turned out to be bad video ram

Man, now I am starting to get this error message.   I was in the middle of playing Mafia 2 when my system froze.  After the reboot, I checked the minidump and sure enough...I have been dealing with black screen issues since the beginning.  I followed dunkinkid's steps to disable the hd audio devices, and it seemed to work for awhile.  Now I seem to be going through the same problems again (black screen, freezing at login, etc).  I am on teh 260.89 drivers (installed after using driver sweeper).  The only thing i dont have is artifacts.  Do you think I should just bite the bullet and RMA my cards?  I am going to start running them one at a time to see if I can find the problem card.  BTW, here is a snippet from my minidump:

STACK_COMMAND:  kb
FOLLOWUP_IP:
nvlddmkm+755b28
fffff880`04f56b28 4883ec28        sub     rsp,28h
SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  4
SYMBOL_NAME:  nvlddmkm+755b28
FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: nvlddmkm
IMAGE_NAME:  nvlddmkm.sys
BUCKET_ID:  WRONG_SYMBOLS
Followup: MachineOwner