[Video Card] GTX280 Purple screen of death

Been having a problem lately where whenever I load up a game I get the purple screen of death.

(Not my picture, but exact same image)



Called up tech support and went through the whole deal with them, checking if the card was getting enough power, if it was overheating etc. Eventually reseating the card fixed it UNTIL I restart/shut off my computer then I would have to reseat the card again to get it working. Now even that is not working and its crashed two or three times without any stress on the card (browsing the internet) and im getting pretty frustrated because I have already RMA'd a previous GTX280 and my computer is going to be out for another week if I have to RMA it again

I have noticed after reading a couple of forums that some people are having the exact same problem as me (even down to the reseating fixing it) and have sent an email to them seeing what else is in common. Anyone else have similar things happen to them or know how to fix the problem short of RMA?

My Specs:

Intel Quad Core Q9450@ 2.66
4B DDR3 (2x2)
Seagate Barracuda 500GB (7200RPM)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB (10000)
evGA E-GEFORCE GTX280
Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer
Vista64
ASUS P45 DDR3
Antec P182
Silverstone Zeus 850W

Just tried new cables, same thing.

I have only seen something similar with a card I had, 8800GTX, when they first came out whereby the motherboard tray was just a little to far way from the edge of the case and when the card was screwed into place it cause just enough tweaking to pull the card enough to cause it go all colorful or not boot at all.

Fortunately the case was aluminum and I was able to push the back plane in enough to bend it more toward the mobo tray and this relieved the stress and the card behaved itself.

You can also try a separate PCIe slot to see if the issue persists. If it does..., RMA it.

So im debating taking it in to bestbuy, I called up asking if I could test my videocard in there system and test it. They said that they only test whole computers, it would be $60 but apparently they will check voltages and everything and find out what component is screwing everything up... is it worth it? I have heard some horror storys about bestbuy geeksquad

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is bring it to bestbuy but setting up a new MB is beyond my skill level.