Radeon 9800 XT Artifacting

[FredWarning]

Hi,

I have a Radeon 9800 XT that suffers from horrible artifacting--white/red/black dots all over the screen, especially in areas with lights (in ATi Tool, FEAR, Doom 3, HL2--and especially bad in Lost Coast, BF2--not as bad here)--at stock speeds. If I underclock the core to ~390 MHz (from 412) and the memory to ~355 (from 365) MHz, the problem goes away, but I feel like I shouldn't have to have my card over 20 MHz under stock speeds. The temperature, according to ATi Tool, is usually somewhere between 75 and 90C, might this have something to do with it? I really don't want to send my card in or get a new one, so I'm hoping there might be something I can do to fix this. Other specs, just in case:

2.8 GHz
1 Gb RAM
Radeon 9800 XT, Catalyst 5.10

I've also tried getting any dust off my card using compressed air, but that seemed to have no effect at all. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[mwmorph]

get a new cooler. or better yet, take advantage of the warranty and rma for a new card.

 

[LostTime77]

As far as artifacing goes, that is odd. You shouldnt worry too much about the cooling aspect though. If your card goes beyond the threshhold of about 87 or 88 degrees C i would say get a better cooler. My old 9800xt was in the ballpark of your temperatures, sorry to say. I used to see 90C in my old dell case. It was pretty horrid. I did not however have artifacing at stock speeds.