Graphics Card issue?

[flamingoezz]

I have a 275 GTX for over a year now. Playing battlefield, I sometimes get wierd things happening on screen. sometimes it looks like broken glass, or an odd triangular part of the screen will go black or change color, sometimes little colored dots will appear on screen in a grid-like pattern.

is that sort of activity signalling the card going bad, or is BF3 just a little hefty for my card to handle? note, this only happens about 5% of the time and normally shutting the game down and starting it again will fix so I can at least play a little longer.

NOTE: I have the latest drivers they released for BF3

 

[vigilante212]

Those are called artifacts and usually happen when a card is overheating. I would suggest taking your GPU out and making sure that the heatsink is free of any dust, you may need to remove the shroud on the card to make sure.

 

[flamingoezz]

thanks..i'll give it a try.

also want to note, it seems to depend on location on screen..for example, in BF3 if i look left or right, the effect changes (triangle changing location or shape), and zooming may completely remove the issue..upon unzooming my gun, itll return.

is that def a hardware issue?