Graphics OK, I need some advice

Hello. I've recently been experiencing trouble whilst running certain games on my PC. I'm going to explain my problem in cold, hard facts and see if anyone can offer any advice.

My problem:

During certain games (all Steam based, online shooters) I can be happily playing for anything upto 30 minutes before my screen freezes, shows what looks like shadows and turns pink, forcing a reboot. My graphics card is running at a high of about 88C when active & 50C when idle so I don't think that it is a over-heating problem and I've tried re-installing Steam & the problematic games (namely Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2) onto my second HDD so I also don't think that it is a problem from that end either.

I DID notice that I had a faulty RAM stick which I've since taken out of the PC altogether and I'm still having the same trouble so its not that either.

I can play other graphically demanding games such as Crysis, Dragon Age and Battlefield Bad Company 2 with no problems what-so-ever, so I can't work it out.

Could this be anything other than a faulty graphics card?, if so please let me know because I can't work it out at all. If it can only be a graphics ard problem then at least I know what I have to do to solve the problem.

My current specs:

Asus P6T mobo
Core i7 930
Nvidia GTX 280 GPU
4 (was 6) gb RAM
850W PSU
Windows 7 64-bit

Thanks for any help you can offer me.

 

run furmark on it.

if it doesnt artifact your GPU is fine.

if it is ONLY steam games sounds more like a driver type issue.

are your drivers up to date and update directx if you can too

 

I ran Furmark and it all seemed fine. All my drivers are up to date so I don't think its that either, I even tried going back and using an old graphics driver but it had the same results.

What other problem could it be though?, I can't wrap my brain around it at all.

 

defo a steam issue then.

doesnt sound like a hardware problem as only steam games are affected.

 

I've spent the last ten minutes running Furmark again and it stills shows no sign of trouble. But I've tried uninstalling Stema and re-downloading it to another hard drive, so maybe it's conflicting with something else?. Also, all other Steam games (barring them two) are running fine.