NVIDIA and other issues

[Freezak]

The graphic card issue used to happen to me to while playing games.  It's most likely broken, and overheats above normal temp.
It shuts itself down to avoid any further damage.  

After I bought a new one, my PC worked like a charm.

Bullshit, that's the easiest way, yet the most unprofitable.

My brother had the same problem with his PC, it was either problem with his Windows either graphic drivers. After installing the older version of graphic drivers it finally started working.

Try also cleaning your graphic card up, perhaps remove the dust.

I got this problem with my old graphics card. On every computer with every driver and every OS it had the same issue. When a card does this, it can't handle the game or it is broken, in this case it is broken. I fully cleaned my card, it only helped that the annoying sound was gone, but still flickerd, shutsdown and show weird characters over my whole screen.

Deends on the case, as you can see here, his card is capable of handling BF3 at ultra settings thus i doubt it's old.