Is this a defective card?

I've been having problems with graphical corruption in games. Now I have two cards in SLI mode (8800GT) , but I was watching a video in GOM (wasn't forcing split frame or any other setting) and I got this




This has happened to me in games before. Is it likely that I have a defective card or am I just unlucky enough to get driver errors a bunch or is this a side effect of using SLI?

If it is a bad card, is there any way to know for asure which one it is given this situation?

Graphics driver stop responding can be caused by anything. It could be defective hardware, driver, direct x, or even motherboard bus corruption.

You can try underclocking those cards, if errors stop when significantly underclocked, it's likely the cards.

Since it crushed on a simple video, the problem is most likely software and not hardware.

Good luck.

I'm on the other side of the fence, it sounds to me like faulty cards

I mean if it is happening constantly there is a bloody good chance the cards are faulty

Try running each card alone and narrow down whether it is one of the cards - if running each card by itself in the system is stable then it might be a software or gpu-unrelated hardware issue like dagger suggested

Ok, both cards are in, sli bridge is attached. SLI mode is disabled.
Monitor is plugged into top card.

It happened again. Could the second card have anything to do with it or is it definitely the top card that's behind it?

(And is there still a chance it could be software that's causing problems with the drivers)