So, I built this computer late summer '10. For this whole time, it has had display driver issues while playing most games (MASS Effect 1 & 2, Borderlands, Portal 2 [only in the 'old testing facility', though...  ], Doom3 [doesn't even recover; I have to restart the system], COD MW2, Planetside, Just Cause 2... Sufficient to say that the list of games that DON'T experience issues is way shorter).

I figured it was a display driver issue (since they are what keep failing), but updating the drivers in January didn't have an effect. Nor could I find any info on specific games doing what I was observing on forums. I seem to be a rather isolated case. I've reformatted the system drive several times with no change in behavior (though about every-other install presents with the problem of menus and windows fading in and out very slow; about 2 seconds for each animation. Fixable by turning off CPU scaling in the BIOS, but I reinstall anyways.).

Also, my computer makes some pretty funny NOISES in games; kind of like a high-pitched buzzing. It changes in pitch and frequency as my field of view changes, which makes me think video card, but I don't know if this could be related to the display driver stability issue I'm having.

Finally, I've run Memtest86+ with no errors. What do you guys make of this?

System: Asus P6T, Intel i7 930, 6GB ram, BFG 275GTX OC, 875W PSU. Running Win7x64 and Ubuntu 10.10 32-bitI have heard lots of problems with the BFG 275GTX OC's with them having overheating problems which then causes permanent GPU issues. If you have a spare video card kicking around or can borrow one from another computer, I would swap that out. BFG went out of business around the time that these cards were crapping out prematurely too. My BROTHER got burned on this same exact model. His card lasted about 9 months until it cooked and caused all sorts of oddities which further lead to the system crashing and rebooting as he didnt replace it when it was glitching and it got worse to the point that the system was rejecting the card...lol

As far as the noise you hear, I havent seen a GPU failure ever cause this, however it could be taxing the interrupt requests and causing timing losses for the audio. 99% of the audio issues that sound like yours are people using the USB powered speakers in which they are not well filtered and so the electrical noise on the 5 volts that the USB port provides is heard through the speakers. Depending on the load on the 5 volts and frequency of this noise, it can be barely noticable or extremely annoying.Called it out of the gate; was the video card. I took a stab in the dark and bought a NEW video card and that corrected the driver issue. That's too bad; got a smoking deal on that 275... now I know why

Also, the sound the computer is making is lower-pitched since the new card; I have no idea what this means. The speakers are jacked in via the 3.5mm(?) plug; I've never had good luck with USB audio (specifically input). Not really worried about it; I can turn game volume up a bit and drown it out.  SOMETIMES a small rubber/felt washer on the vid card hold-down screw will dampen that hum...probably resonance from the vid card fan...