> Surely that's a rather rare failure mode on a graphics card?

About the same as getting some bad RAM bits in your normal PC RAM probably.

> That seems to me more like the kind of thing where you get a brand new 
> card and it's DOA. This card has been installed and running without issue 
> for years.

I had the RAM in my desktop machine at work partially fail after some time. 
It started when dealing with big zip files, it would complain that the CRC 
check didn't match up, even though I had just downloaded it.  Then it would 
blue-screen randomly, and gradually got more frequent.  I did the memcheck86 
or whatever it was and there was an area of RAM that was totally corrupt, 
it's a wonder Windows even booted, let alone worked normally most of the 
time.  Replaced the RAM and very reliable now.

I had the same with my nVidia Ti4200 graphics card, actually identical 
symptoms to you, random triangles flickering across the screen.  Gradually 
got worse over time, and also while playing a game until it crashed.  Tried 
it in my sisters PC and the same symptoms.  I didn't bother trying to figure 
out the cause, but just assumed it was bad RAM.

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