3DMark06 Glitch, or defective GPU?

This is a re-post of something I posted in another thread, but since that one got burried (and it was somewhat an irrelevent post, anyways), I decided to start a new thread:
Okay, I can't finished a proper 3DMark06 benchmark because it keeps on crashing saying some sort of Visual C++ runtime error!

What the heck...

Also, when I was running the "Return to Proxycon" demo, the textures in the space scene were all screwed up... Is this due to a faulty GPU?

Here's a screeny:


Extra Info: I'm running driver version 169.04.
Okay, I was listening closely to the GPU during the test, and it seems to be making a weird noise that's a blend of clicking and a high-pitched whine. I've never noticed this before (except when I was running LithUnwrap with the 3D preview), so is this simply the fan kicking it up a notch to audible levels... or is it something else? Or does the GPU whine like the CPU in certain Vostro/Inspiron models?

There's also "stripes" on the water in that dragon demo the 3rd time I ran the test... I'm 100% sure it wasn't there before, so it can only be an artifact... And if it's an artifact, that means my GPU must be defective since I'm not even OC'ing it right now! Grrr...

So... Is that a defective GPU, or some sort of driver issue, or problem with 3DMark06 itself?

By the way, I was NOT OC'ing at all when I ran that, so if the clocks are too high even at stock clocks, then I guess it's defective .

One other thing that I might want to mention:
I HAD my OC at 550/525, but then Gears of War would sometimes mess up (graphical artifacts), so I figured that the memory clock was too high, and I brought it down to 520, and Gears have been fine since then... But is it possible that I permanently damaged my GPU by having the memory clock too high to begin with?

 

Oops, can you still play games such as GoW without artifacts?

 

Well, it's actually really hard to tell due to the graphical nature of Gears of War.

Even when there WERE Artifacts, there "weren't" any artifacts--something just looked out of place (like the colour was distorted, or the screen wasn't showing something it's supposed to show).

They weren't "real" artifacts, so I first shrugged them off as bugs in the game (And believe me, that game is buggy), but then, during one play through, my entire view point turned into this bright white circle with weird textures around it, everything pretty much clicked "in" and I knew that I was experiencing artifacts all along.

After no longer OC'ing it, I've only played it for an hour or so, so I can't really say...

But 3DMark06 should stress the GPU out more than Gears of War (I'm getting 35+ FPS in GeOW most of the time, while in 3D Mark, I'd be lucky to be getting more than 15FPS), so if 3DMark06 is showing artifacts, I can't rest easy knowing that there's a possibility that my GPU is defective when things gets too intensive .

 

Change your gfx driver and see if that helps. That would be your best bet. Did you have this problem with the stock driver that came with the notebook?

 

Make sure to run a program like Driver Cleaner in Safe Mode, then install whatever driver you choose. If the problem persists at STOCK CLOCKS, your card may be defective or simply overheating at stock...how old is your laptop?

 

I didn't try the stock drivers, since they're soooo old >_>... I highly doubt it's a driver issue since the artifact during that water dragon demo only appeared on my 3rd run (not my first 2), so I'm pretty sure it's somehow heat related, but I can't pin it down... I called up Dell's tech support and they told me to update my drivers to "their" newest driver, which is the 156.** series... While mine is 169.04 .

As for how old my laptop is, it's only 3 months old.

Speaking of which, I already got rid of 3DMark since that weird Visual C++ Runtime error pretty much made the entire app useless (I couldn't view my results or anything--it'd just crash the program). So there's no point in trying different drivers and hunting for artifacts in a program that's no longer on my computer .