Nvidia GT525m Artifact Problems

Hi all,
I received another brand new Dell XPS L502x yesterday with the Nvidia GT525m. I reinstalled windows and all of the drivers right away, including the Dell-supplied 268.30 Nvidia driver, and fired up Unigine Heaven. I left it running for a while, and everything worked fine, I got something like 14FPS at FHD, which isn’t bad for this card, and temps were very good for a laptop (59C). Then, I saw Nvidia had released a much newer driver, the 280.26 driver, and I upgraded it through Verde. After a restart, I was going to start Heaven again, but instead decided to install 3DMark ’06, and ran it. After the around 20 seconds I was bombarded with artifacts which seemed to increase in severity. I tried to exit, but instead was greeted with a BSOD. I felt the computer, and it was not hot at all, and the fan was blowing very lightly.

I started windows, and tried it again this time taking a close look at the temps. It never got above 60C, but the artifacts returned at around the same point. This time I was able to quit before a BSOD. I installed the 270.61 with a clean installation, no luck. I tried downgrading it further to Dell’s 268.30, no luck. The same things still happened. I tried Heaven, same artifacts. Even Internet Explorer 9’s test-drive hardware acceleration got artifacts when I selected my Nvidia card through Optimus (not the integrated graphics it normally uses).

Then I tried re-installing windows again (I had just got the computer, so I didn’t really care). Nothing changed, it still artifacts with the 268.30 driver from Dell’s site, and the 280.26, 275.33, and 270.61 drivers from NVidia’s site. This computer is not at all overclocked, and temperatures never exceed 65C for the graphics card, which is cool for a laptop, especially this one. I doubt the temperature gauge is incorrect because the computer doesn’t feel hot to the touch. What besides heat could cause artifacting? Is this a driver problem, or just a coincidence? Is there anything else on my end I could try, or do I just need to call Dell and have it fixed?

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

Call Dell. Sounds like a bad card.

 

Yeah, I called three times already. They haven't called me back yet. It's really bizarre that the last two brand new replacements they sent me had more initial problems than any refurb I've had in the past.