well as someone who has tried to kill a 8800gtx by turning the fan off, then by removing the cooler both of which failed to kill the card i can tell you those cards are quite resilient. I'm wondering if maybe the driver issues come into play when using a 3rd party overclocking/tweaker app like powerstrip/rivatuner/precision/afterburner/etc... i know often new drivers don't play nice with those apps and its possible the apps were causing the problem. How many of the people exhibiting the problem are running a 3rd party app.