X51 won't start - GTX 660 problems

Computer is only a few days old - Alienware x51.

First thing I did was install the drivers recommended to me from the dell site after entering my service tag and OS - Windows 8 64bit. The video card driver that dell told me to install was 307.07.

The next day, whilst playing a game, the screen froze and became covered in blue squares before restarting. Upon restart during the bios loading, the screen is covered in horizontal blue lines. Once bios loading has finished and windows starts trying to load the screen goes black and my monitor does not recognise my computer even though when i unplug the VGA it knows that is is unplugged. The computer will remain on with the screen black until I hold down the power button. Monitor and cable are running fine. this happened each time i tried to start the computer. After leaving it be for a few hours it turned on normally again. Thinking it was an overheating or a driver issue with my gtx 660 I installed a gpu temp program - Temps reached mid 70C during intense gaming. I also then went to the nvidia site and updated to the latest gtx 60 driver - 310.90 instead of 307.07. Around this point after installing some new apps etc i started to get constant blue screens, either - driver verifier detected violation or unexpected kernal mode trap. After removing my 3rd party anti virus and settling with windows defender this somewhat remedied the blue screen problem.

I then ran a video card stress test from the dell site. Part way through the test the screen froze with blue (and yellow/red) squares, requiring a restart. upon restart the screen had the same blue line on it and would not start. after a few goes it eventually did. 

Then during a skype video call I had the screen freeze with the blue squares again before restarting itself. The blue lines appear on start up again during the bios load before the screen going black. This has stayed this way and i have not been able to turn it on. 

I turned the computer on and through holding F8 navigated my way to restoring my system using the alienrespawn in order the restore my pc to how it was when it was sent to me (without the drivers I installed).

However, this did not work and i still can not turn the computer on as the blue lines appear and the screen still goes black . 

Additionally, now I cant enter safe mode as I need to finish setting up windows (entering country and email etc like I had to when I first turned it on).

I have waited half a day and the same still happens - during bios load horizontal blue lines. after bios load screen goes black, computer stays on, requires forced shut down.

I have emailed tech support and am waiting on their response also.

Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz, 8GB (2 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 up to 1600MHz, 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660, 1TB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache, Windows 8, 64-bit, English.