Slices and flashes on screen

[shad937757]

i have a dell 435mt with a ati radeon 4850hd DDR3. my pc has the i7 processor. only when i am online or in a game the screen will all of a sudden get these black and gray slices through the picture, and sometimes black spots and sometimes the whole screen goes black. the PC is only around 3 years old, but i have used it for gaming so i was wondering if this was my video card taking a crap? I changed monitors to eliminate the "monitor going bad problem." if anyone has had this problem or knows what it is please help i would appreciate it.
thanks.

 

[jamie_1318]

Does the same thing happen when you game offline? If it does sounds like a video Card issue. Try cleaning out the Computer case, and spend some extra time cleaning out the GPU fans.

 

[shad937757]

yes, still happens ofline in games. i cleaned everything real good yesterday. actuall removed the video card and cleaned all fans. just was wanting to see what people thought of this problem before i went and spent money on a new card.

 

[shad937757]

also when this pc was brand new the ati raedon 4850 has always ran kinda hot i think. the temp in the CCC says 92 degrees Celsius.

 

[kajabla]

Yep, overheating might be the problem. How is the setup of the case fans? Does the card have good airflow out the back of the case?
If lowering the heat by some means doesn't help, try lowering the clock rate using an application like MSI Afterburner.