Problem in games - temperature issue?

[PSS3IS]

I have two 7600GT cards in SLI, and I get corrupted graphics in more demanding games (like Bioshock, Stalker, Timeshift) after running them for a few minutes (I use 1280x1024 and get decent frame rates by the way). This doesn't happen in older and "lighter" games like Painkiller and HL2, except very rarely and to a much lesser extent, and only after running them for a long time.

I monitored the temperatures while playing and they do get pretty high, although I'm not sure if they're abnormally high. Last time I checked they got to 71°C and 70°C for each card respectively. Could this be the cause of the problem? I opened the case recently and the fans were pretty clogged with dust, and while I did do a superficial cleaning, it didn't make any difference. I'm thinking of disassembling the whole thing and give the fans a proper cleaning, but I need to make sure that this is a temperature issue before I can overcome my laziness and commit to doing it. Frankly 70°C doesn't seem THAT high to me. Is it?

 

[bushmastertd]

to be safe i would take the box apart and give it a good cleaning, and if you can maybe add another fan or two.

 

[PSS3IS]

Yeah I think I'll definitely do that, I've checked the temperatures again, and this time they went to 77 and 74, and I have a feeling they go even higher (probably up to 80).
Thanks for the reply.

 

[bushmastertd]

no worries. May also check the fan setting in the nvidia control panel and see if auto or direct fan control is on. Try cranking the fan speed to max and see if that helps.

 

[coa]

He's right.Increase fan speed and buy some fans and than see is that it.

 

[nirgal]

The garbled graphics could be because of some memory chip on the card overheating. They are probably not equal in terms of air flow, so increasing fan speed might not help. 70 isn't that bad under load but if you're starting to hit 80, I'd do something about it.