Last night…..

Well, I was just finishing up a level in WIC and I started to get artifacting on my display. I immediately checked the temps and they were at 65^c, nothing unusual (Crysis runs at around 74-75^c). All of a sudden the monitor turned off and said no signal. Hmmm. I said this couldn’t be good, so I went an restarted. The machine booted right up and monitor/display was fine. I loaded up WIC and no problems or artifacting. I wonder if it was just a driver issue. Do any of you have any ideas on what this could be? BTW I have had this card for about 3 months and have had no problems and still might not. Specs are below.

Could have been something as simple as a lose cable or connection.

I had something that I first thought was artifacting, but turned out to be a lose DVI connection. Basically I saw bunch of blue pixels all over the screen and got worried, so I reseated the card and reconnected the cables just to make sure it wasn't artifacting, and it ended up fixing the problem. /shrug

Also, if you're overclocking, that should be your issue.

The system could have just simply crashed for whatever reason.

Every now and then when I play X3: Reunion the game crashes to the desktop when I either simply flying my ship or navigating through various menu options.

i donno if this will help ,,but,,i had a similar experience,and when i examined the 8800gt it was so hot that i could not handle it,in fact,,it later burned out that night,,and is now rma'd..
so for anyone that is having such glitches,watch out and keep tabs on your vid card's temps,,,and,,,let us here know,,thank you...

but he just said that he checked temps and it was fine

You don't say what the artifacts looked like, but if they are as many describe then it's not a driver problem. They usually come from one of the following,

- Overheating, can not just cause momentary artifacts but longer term can damage the core

- PCB damage. Heavy card flexes, plus repeated thermal cycling, could break traces or solder joints (intermittent connection)

- Poor power, whether it be system PSU defect or failure, load on it too high, card power circuit overheat degradation or capacitors wearing out

Generally a problem like this doesn't go away permanently, unless your system PSU were failing and was replaced before it had any ill effects on other components. I suppose it goes without saying that you should check the card for proper fan operation and that the 'sink isn't clogged with dust. Further, if overheat causes clock speed throttling it can quite quickly drop the temp down by a couple dozen degrees so if when you saw a temp report it wasn't still creating artifacts that moment, you might not have seen a peak temp.

If you don't have a backup system and/or backup video card for that system, I would keep an eye out for a cheap spare video card just in case that one needs returned for warranty replacement (hopefully you haven't voided the warranty with modifications).