overclock settings do not stick, reverting to defaults after 'OK' button

Please help me.

I'm using windows vista ultimate 64bit with a geforce 8800gtx (169.44)...
rivatuner2.08

my computer was quite happily overclocked to 648mhz/1022mhz core/mem but all the sudden today it started giving me very dark screen in warcraft3.

i checked out other games, they ran fine but then i checked rivatuner and it had gone back to 576/900 core/mem.

whatever frequencies i set them at, as soon as i press "OK" i can see it reverting back to default 576/900 for a split second before closing the window. it will not accept the frequencies that i enter.

so far i have looked through google results and realise the driver signing issues, tried going back to older 169.25, trying that new 174.x, tried older rivatuner2.07 and 2.03, tried ntune but the same problem...

overclock settings just will not stay.

have I fried my graphics card? is that why it was happily oc'ing before and now its not? i did notice artifacts whilst playing crysis at 1900x1200 high

please help me!!

 

also tried playing cs:source and it stops rendering frames after a few seconds, i have to minimise cs:source then select to get it going again, only to repeat it self.

when i ran video stress test, the things that i could see kept on repeating it self until finally all i have on my screen was black.

tried crysis and that works fine (except for really low fps without oc)

 

leave the card at default speeds for the time being and try stressing the card with ATI Tool

click Scan For Artifacts and let it run for atleast 1 hour

 

said something about kernal driver not being available to communicate to my gfx card, then something about fraps interfering. so i closed fraps.

i've left it running now for 45minutes and its reporting no errors and there are no visible bright dots as i've seen through google.

Is the picture meant to be still?

thank you for your response

 

nevermind, seems to have worked it self out after i unplugged everything related to gfx, cleaned gfx card, then reconnected very securely.