9800 pro-blems

[frank1987]

hi there, i'm new to the forum and not too sharp on the computer front!
i have a 9800pro that may or may not be acting up at the minute, to begin with wenever im watching certain videos i will see alot of black dots across the screen, im not sure whether to attribute this to my cpu or my graphics adapter, ive heard that its normally graphics overheating wen black dots appear, however i have had the side panel off and a case fan blowing directly at it! i have also reinstalled the display drivers that came with the card after using ATIs latest. wen i play some games now i get alot of graphical errors such as blue smudges on the screen(such as the screen of splinter cell below), the problem becomes more apparent wen i put on thermal imaging thingys. this is taken on completely low specs. which leads my very inexperienced persona to think its not to do with overheating?! to be honest i''m not really sure so if any one could shed some light on the situation i wud be most greatful.

my system specs:
AMD athlon 2700+ 333fsb 256kb cache
768MB ram, pc2700
albatron KM 18G pro motherboard (nForce 2 chipset)
sapphire radeon 9800 pro 128mb
120GB hdd 5400rpm
8GB hdd 5200 rpm (its a pretty bad hdd but i use it for backing up only)
i think thats all the relevant stuff...........

 

[Apokalipse]

I would also say the 9800 is overheating. to stop it, you can underclock it (which would make it slower) or get a better cooler

you can use Rivatuner to underclock it, and see if you get the black dots then. if they disappear, you can be certain it is the video card overheating, and get another cooler. I would suggest an ATI Silencer 3 to cool it