fastest way to get my video card to freak out?

[lavrishevo]

Well Nova, I have bad news for you. It will fail again. It is a design flaw. I am on my 3rd motherboard. I am thinking about pulling it open and re-applying with the best thermal paste. Use smc fan control and set the min speed to at least 2800. I'm kind of stuck as I know it is a ticking time bomb.

Apple should buy it back towards a new model if they can't properly fix the problem. Their just throwing parts at it for a year then it's over. It's a shame because with my nice SSD and 16gb of 1600 mhz ram it is a great machine! Still very fast. Some people pull the bottom off and you can use multiple methods to cool it down. The only known method of getting a lot more life out of the board is to drastically cool it down.

 

[NathanA]

Before I brought it to the Apple Store, I could barely use the thing before it locked up... now it's rock solid.. what gives?

If it is just on the verge of starting to fail, then it might not behave the same way consistently every time. But you have nearly a year before the extended warranty/recall program expires for you, and if yours really is failing, I am confident it will do so well before that time is up.

-- Nathan