All good suggestions. Do you know if the problem occurred before or after upgrading to your current version of Nvidia drivers? I tend to think one thing that helps is to unplug the pc, open it up, and use a can of compressed air to blow out any dust, being careful on the fans (also be extremely wary of static electricity). Another thing to check is if your AV software (or even firewall software) affected your Nvidia update. I've seen certain firewall manufacturer software quarantine or run the updated software in a sandbox (if your software has this ability). If that's the case you'll see notes in the quarantine files. You'll want to look at the path of the files affected (example would be any on the drive letter, program files, Nvidia name of file). You might also want to check your Windows Event Viewer logs too. Look under Event Viewer, Windows Logs, Application, and under Event Viewer, Windows Logs, System. You should see Errors for when the monitor went out listed there. You could test things by reinstalling the older Nvidia driver version and see if you still get the error..

The dust settled, thinking "what a fine home, at least for now" not realizing that doom would soon be coming in the form of a vacuum cleaner.