Is my gpu broke?

[oleary321]

Hello
I have an ATI Radeon 4870 for about 4months and have been using it with highest settings in games everyday since purchase.
Last week after about an hour of playing the gpu fan makes LOADS of noise and the gpu is extremely hot which is very unusual because i could barely hear the fan before. Now everytime i play a game i have to open up the case just so I can play without the graphics card going mad.
Today when i went onto a game it came up loads of strange lines that increased/decreased as i moved the mouse ( see image below)

http://tinypic.com/r/33zep8y/5

Anyone know what this is and what should I do?
Thanks

 

[Derbixrace]

take out the card and blow out dust from the fan and if necessary reapply thermalpaste. it sounds like it have overheated and if youre really unlucky it may have taken damage from the overheating and you need a new card. but try to blow dust from the fan first. and check your GPU temperatures on load

 

[oleary321]

i took it out and theres no dust on it, it looks brand new

 

[jryan388]

Check and see if the heatsink is making proper contact with the GPU. If there's a gap, that's likely the problem and you need to reapply thermal paste.
Just a guess, it could be a driver issue too.

 

[oleary321]

no thats not it
im going to replace the gpu with a different one today to make sure its definetly the gpu

 

[guanyu210379]

4 months? Claim your warranty! I think the graphic card has defects.