MSI Nvidia GTX 760 OC Edition broken

Question

Hi guys, back in December I bought an MSI Nvidia GTX 760 OC Edition and it has worked flawlessly until a few days ago. The first sign of trouble (a few days ago) was that the computer was restarting and when it returned to desktop there was a messaged that read "nVidia display drivers have stopped working and have been recovered". Sometimes it would happen without restarting the computer which would result in the screen going blank for a second and then coming back on with the aforementioned message.
To resolve this I used the "Driver Sweeper" program to completely remove the drivers for the card and reinstall them, but the problem persisted. I did this several times with the latest driver and the older driver and the last time I did it when I was booting into windows the screen got covered with graphical artifacts in pink and yellow colours and would not even display the mouse cursor. So I switched to the integrated graphics (thank goodness my motherboard has onboard graphics or I would be screwed) and since then the system would not recognise the graphics card, even in the BIOS. This means that I cannot install drivers for the card because the Nvidia installer will not install drivers if it does not detect a graphics card present.
Now when I put the graphics card in the fan runs at max even if I unplug the PCI-e power connectors from it, yet the system refuses to recognise the card at all.
So here's a summary of what I have done:
cleaned drivers out completely
Reinstalled latest and older version of driver
Checked Bios
Reseated GPU
Tried the card in another PCI-e slot
Started the computer with the HDMI cable plugged into the graphics card, resulting in no monitor output
Attempted to install drivers from the DVD, same problem as with the drivers downloaded from the Nvidia website
Here are my system specs, everything is under a year old:
MSi Z87-G55 mobo
intel Core i5 4670k
Corsair Vengeance 8GB Ram (2x4)
XFX 650 watt core pro Bronze edition PSU
So yeah, pretty high spec and all new. I don't have another computer to try the GPU in, but with the driver related shenanigans it is fair to suspect that the GPU is at fault. I have removed the card and everything is running fine without it.
MSi don't offer any helpful information about their RMA procedure so it would appear my only hope is the person I bought it from. Although I will try to harass MSi about it to see if I can get it RMA'ed via them.

Answer 1

Right, as an update I was issued a replacement by MSI and it arrived today The broken card arrived to them on Wednesday and they dispatched a replacement that same day and it arrived today (Monday). So that is less than five days from the broken card arriving to them to the replacement arriving at my door, very impressed. So if anyone in the UK has a faulty MSi product that needs replacing I can vouch for their RMA service, it is first class In my experience at least, I can say that MSi are one of the good guys and will definitely be a manufacturer to consider when shopping for new hardware.