Severe driver-crashes with N580GTX Lightning! [v3xx series]

Question

Hello everyone!
i just registered here after a while of scouring the forum a bit. i'll try to present info about the issue in accordance with the posting guidelines as far as possible, as well as try to be concise in it.
my system-specs can be seen in my sig below. following is about the occurrence(s):
1. i got my system built in Aug./Sept. 2011, the GPU being bought at the same time. since then, i have played games a lot less (unjustifiably). in fact, very rarely in 2012. the last games i remember playing were BF3, skyrim, hard reset, & limbo, all at their respective default graphics-settings. the GPU has NEVER BEEN overclocked, nor MSI's applications been used at any point of time.
2. two months back, in november, i started noticing that the display-driver crashed intermittently. this was a never-seen-earlier issue for me, and it being far random & infrequent in nature, i neglected it as some random occurrence. the display-driver must've been from 3xx series then, but i can't say surely. i was till then using drivers downloaded from MSI's website after it used to notify me about the same. this was probably the 1st time i had downloaded drivers from nvidia's website though.
3. a little later, with time, nvidia started showing me updates about driver-releases every now & then, and i started downloading & installing all of them.
4. now, at the time i am writing, i had downloaded v310.70, and the crashes, with the passage of time within these 2 months, have gone from worse to berserk! i booted up my PC 2 days back after a gap of a week, and for a few hours it behaved normal, but after an overnight operation the next day, the driver showed it's true worth again! since then, in the past 2 days, the v310.70 driver is behaving madly, and the system kept restarting on this driver after continuous crashes! i was also notified about v310.90 being available for download, but i skipped that understandably.
5. today, i tried clean installation of earlier drivers as well, till v280.26, using 'driver fusion', but to no avail. the most 'stable' version seems to be v306.97, as it crashes only when:
 - i boot up the PC. it then crashes 3-4 times continuously, and then everything's normal again.
 - same behaviour when i put the PC off 'sleep' mode, though not consistent.
 - when i watch a youtube video; crash occurs very randomly.
thankfully, with v306.97, the PC isn't restarting (yet!).
6. i was contemplating writing to MSI India for a probable fault with the card after such crashes & after going through nvidia forums (where nvidia hasn't bothered to respond properly), but then thought of 1st posting it here after going through this forum.
please note that i have NOT overclocked the GPU at any point of time ever, played games very less, games used to run flawlessly till sometime back (and i haven't played any after this issue showed up, but i know what could be the result of doing so).
S/N of the card is: 602-02SB11098062
am not able to test the card in any other PC, as i don't have one, and nor do i have friend(s) here close-by. also, should i update MSI Afterburner? i read in a thread that it solved the issue with one. nevertheless, i know i should, obviously 
also, i keep my PC turned ON frequently over the nights (if that is of any help here).
Please let me know if any additional info is reqd., as well as what could be done. i don't have much idea about intricacies of the topic like changing voltages, BIOS flashing, etc., but you could just let me know what should be done & i have the searching-ability as well as Mr. Google to assist me too
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: so the system had its 1st restart now on v306.97 driver, after i started gtalk. a momentary hang, and zap! also, am using the DVI port on the card to connect it to the monitor, if that's of any use here.

Answer 1

I have this same problem and have been scouring forums for months on end to no avail. Previously using the older version of the drivers it would crash often when running intensive games such as BF3 and Hitman Absolution whereas since the recent update it crashes regularly with pretty much any game on high settings. By crash I mean lots of small green square shaped artifacts all over the screen then the machine reboots.
I have reported this problem to Scan computers where I purchased the card from and travelled 2 hours to get to their base only to have them test the card for 20 mins on BF3 and report that they found no issue with it. The problem I have is also that it could sometimes run for a couple of hours before having sudden spate of crashes so it wasn't really guaranteed to show a problem with the way they tested it.
Scan at least understood that I was frustrated and replaced all the mem sticks in my machine - this didnt help either as the problem persists and I am very very frustrated with the card - so much that I am thinking I might chuck it in the bin and buy a 680GTX from a different manufacturer because it costs me more to take time off travelling to Scan that it would do buying a new card (petrol and losing pay as I am self employed).
I have tried the following to resolve the issue;
1) Complete rebuild of machine - remove clean and reassemble all parts and reinstall OS from scratch more than once
2) Run with different driver versions - some are more flakey than others but all are unstable
3) Replace all the memory
4) Ran with memory in different slots
5) Changed mem timings from auto to XMP to manual etc
6) Ensured no area of the system was overclocked in bios
7) Running different versions of motherboard bios
8) ensured electricity supply wasnt at fault by changing the sockets used, 4 way gangs used, tried dedicated socket - I also moved house during this period and still get the same issue at the new house
9) Rewired the graphics card to different ports on the PSU in case those were at fault - all give the same result. PSU is also a 750w corsair pro series so has enough juice to run a single card that hasnt been overclocked in my opinion. I also dont have any other add-in cards that might be drawing power.
I notice that sometimes when it crashes to desktop and doesnt reboot the system it states that the driver stops responding and also that the graphics card can no longer be detected.
I had at one point thought this might be an overheating issue however sometimes I can boot up my machine from cold and there is white lines all across the screen in POST and upon booting into windows it goes into the default vga driver mode stating that the graphics card cannot be detected - the msi afterburner software also states that it cannot detect any compatible hardware.
If I then reboot my machine anything up to 10 times the graphics card then starts working and the white lines in POST dissapear and everything might run fine for a few hours. Having said that it actually used to sometimes crash in VLC player whilst watching a movie which is hardly what I would call intensive use.
 All in all very frustrating and whilst I used to seriously rate MSI products this has left me feeling a bit cold because SCAN were not interested in the many screenshots i sent them or the video of the problem occurring - they eventually relented and said send in the card for testing which would equate to them having it for up to 2 weeks during which time i dont know if they will just test it with bf3 for 20 mins again and declare it perfectly fine.
Also I have to add, if I enable the on-board graphics chip on the motherboard and run with that then the system is completely stable which again points me back to the GPU being at fault.