Over heating issue

lately my pc has been crashing due to what i think is my graphics card overheating. My graphics cards is the 8800GT. My monitor goes graizy with lots of colored lines but sound still works to an extent. I think it is my graphics card because when it freezes the card becomes VERY hot. I was wondering if there is any known issues about this card type overheating as i have only owned my pc for a year and if there is any ways to fix the cooling in the card without having to buy a new Graphics card. I am using Riva Tuner to increase the speed of my fan and it seems to have helped but to play games i must increase the increase % to 80% and i'm a little worried since im new the overclocking and im scared i may be damaging my graphics card.

You have two options:
1.) Buy a PCI slot fan to blow air directly on the card. I did this on an old Dell system I was using the 8800GT in and if helped a lot.
2.) Download Percison, as stated above, and adjust your fan speeds until you get a cool temp. I run both my GTX 260 Core 216 SC's at 80% fan speed with no problems. A lot of people set their GPU fans to 100% from the start to keep them cooler. You should have no issue with adjusting your fan speeds.

hey thanks for the fast reply
i checked the temp when gaming and it got to 68 C before it crashes. Tried to get my graphics card out earlier today but there was 2 screws which i can not get to and i don't have anything to unscrew them with either. gonna have another look at it see if i can get in and clean it now.
Was thinking a fan was a good idea, think i will buy one when ever i can get some money just wanted to make sure it was overheating before i spent money on something and realised i needed to buy a different piece of hardware altogether.
I was wondering how safe it was to run an overclocking system every time your running a game (a lot of the time for me ^^) since when i use about 45% overclocking i can watch videos and 80% run games but im very new to the overclocking stuff and i am paranoid it might be causing more harm than good.

i downloaded furmark, at first i could not complete the test i tried 3 times consecutively it froze about 60% 1st time 40% next and about 38% on the last try. from what i could see from the tests there was no artifacts tho.
I tried the test with overclocking and i was able to finish the benchmark test and there were no artifacts as far as i could see.
at the moment my pc is sitting in the middle of the room so i can access it easy and because i was looking at the graphics card so i don't think that can be it.
when i looked at the card for dust there was a little bit inside of it but nothing substantial, after cleaning the dust there was no difference as far as i can see.
Think it could be a virus of some sort? i've done checks but i never really trust avg since i only have the free version

Most GPUs should be fine until you get to the mid 80's (C). Now, for most people, this is extremely hot (100C = boiling water), but be reminded that these chips are designed for this. Most cards with stock cooling run in the 50-60's C just fine. When you start getting close to 80C, that's pretty warm, but even then thermal shutdown is closer to 105C in most cases.

It might not be a graphics card problem after all, it could be the CPU overheating. Check the temps and post some updates. Your card is fairly cool so there shouldn't be any problems.

Yup. Your CPU temps look fine too. Like stated your GPU temps are fine too.

Can you list:
Driver version

PSU (model)


What's your OC on CPU/GPU

What games crash and the game patch level.

Hey rium2000 as stated above ALL of your temps are fine and good too. Does your older card work ok? Have you tried a different card to isolate the problem as being GPU?

I am wondering if you have tried slightly loosening motherboard screws with equal turn on each screw and then unfasten and resecure GPU into Mb as well as DVI or VGA cable to card. Point being is that your case could be a cheap piece of crap lol and warped; which is attached to MB... therefore, forbidding pins from proper contact when heated.

If you isolate the problem you can give better clues to a solution.

Call the company of your video card manufacturer and RMA the card. Getting weird displays on your screen like blocks or lines of color is never a good thing for a card to do.