PLEASE HELP: EVGA GT 430 and Radeon X300/X550/X0150 malfunctioning

[reparadocs]

I just built a new rig with a GT 430 in it and glitchy lines, bars and blobs appear at random times and less frequently, computer crashes and driver crashes, and when I am doing something graphically intense (Portal 2, Starcraft 2) these happen more often. The screen will freeze, the drivers will crash, the game will get discolored. I updated all my drivers and that did not help, so I thought it was a bad graphics card. I took it out and replaced it with a card from an old computer: Radeon X300/X550/X1050. It freezes randomly some times (word processing, starting up windows), and always freezes on Starcraft 2 and Portal 2. I understand it was not meant to play these games, but I could play Portal 1 and Starcraft 2 beta fine on this card on my old computer. Yesterday, when watching hulu, after about 40 mins, I got a BSOD pointing to ATIKMDAG.sys
When I took the card out, it was really hot. (The card does not have a fan on it). With the GT 430, when I took it out, it was warm, but never hot. I also experience problems with both cards (albeit less frequently) when leaving one of the case sides open. Is this a problem with airflow or with the cards? The X300/X550/X1050 is an old card, and it could have easily died...

 

[reparadocs]

I also installed Wubi, and with the GT 430 just running Ubuntu and firefox for about an hour, there were absolutely no problems, no glitches, nothing...In windows, glitchy things appeared instantly or atleast after 5 minutes. Could this be a problem with windows? (Its not a problem of drivers, with wubi, the same drivers are used)

Whenever I try to open minecraft on the X300/X550/X1050, the screen freezes even though it isnt supposed to be a graphically intense game.

Whenever the screen freezes with the X300/X550/x1050 I must restart the computer, I cant use Ctrl-Alt-Del

 

[reparadocs]

Bump/ Please give your opinion or advice! I really want to know whether I should RMA the GT 430 or if its something else

Also, As i said, minecraft freezes with the older graphics card, but I know that in the old comp, Minecraft played fine with this older card.

My rig:
EVGA GT 430
AMD Athlon II x4
Samsung 1tb harddrive 32mb cache, 7200rpm
8 gb Gskill Sniper RAM
Pioneer CD-Rom Drive
Rosewill 500w power supply
Rosewill Backbone Tower Case
ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD Motherboard

 

[nforce4max]

Thermals, likely is that in windows more load is being placed on the card than in linux (i use suse) leading to the issues described. If the card has a fan install msi afterburner and max the fan out if that is available or downclock the card. Download gpuz and check temps there is well if you are not interested in msi afterburner.

 

[reparadocs]

I maxed the fan out using evga precision, and the I now rarely have problems when just doing normal things. However, when I start a game, the problems occur again. (I did this with the GT 430, the x300/X550/x1050 does not have a fan)

 

[reparadocs]

Also how do I downclock a card?

 

[nforce4max]

drag the slider down to the left or down depending on the program being used and looking on the clocks area. Bring it down 20-30mhz and try it then.

 

[reparadocs]

thanks a lot...everything works now...However, does putting the fan up to max ruin the card somehow, or decrease its lifespan??? Should I still RMA the card?

 

[reparadocs]

-_-
Ive decided to RMA it. I played Portal 2 for about an hour and it was perfect, no glitches nothing... But right as I exited out of the program the problems started again...
Anyway, thanks for all your help

 

[nforce4max]

No problem and good luck wit your RMA