Display crashed - 2008 iMac running Windows 7

Question

Hi there,
I have a later 2008 iMac running Windows 7 on an Nvidia 8800gt. I've been using the Windows side only for playing games, and have been doing so for about a year now. Everything has worked fine until today running Far Cry 2. The display started to stutter, then froze up. I rebooted, and it did this again, eventually crashing out of Windows.
Long story short, when I turn the iMac on now the grey screen is covered in green pixelated lines, and it won't show anything else. Did I finally kill the graphics card, or do I have bigger issues?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hmm...looks like you've been bitten by the "weak NVIDIA chip die" issue that so far has not been confirmed in desktops. 
During the NVIDIA chip scandal of 2006-2008, an investigation was launched (media source I can't recall) which found a fair number of GeForce 8/9 chips also fell to the same supplier's mistake that crippled countless notebooks.
The best you can do is to bring the unit over to your local Apple Authorized gurus (including Apple Stores) and have them check it out.  You can tell them that you suspect a bad GPU.  I'm not sure if you'll have to pay for it, though if you bought AppleCare, you'd still be covered today.
Nate