ARG! Stupid Artifacts!

I was getting TONS of artifacts in games lately, to the point where it slowed down the game then locked it up. I decided to have a look see under the hood, and found hair melted to the underside of the video card, right under the processor. Could the hair be the offender? I removed it (took a little bit of scraping by my fingernail, but nothing rough), but I'm not entirely sure if the video card is going to be damaged or not by the stupid hair.

Just wondering if:
1) The hair caused the artifacts.
2) The hair caused damage to the card.

 

[Cawchy87]

First off, what do you mean by "under the prosessor"? Was it under the chip? or under the heatsink? Also, what type of card do you have, and how old is it?

 

On the underside of the card. The side opposite the fan. Its a GF4 4600 Ti, about a year and a half old. Ive tried the latest drivers from Nvidia, and older ones, none seem to work in fixing the problem. I run it through the DVI output to my Dell 2001FP at 1600x1200, however the problem still existed even on my 17 inch CRT at 1024x768.

BTW, it has not been overclocked at all.

 

[Tab]

Time to get a 800XT

 

[Cawchy87]

Download either a power strip program, or the NVidia Omega drivers. Then insted of O/C ing your card, down clock it. If you put it way down and you still get artifacts then it probibly is your card. If don't, then it may possibly be your power supply somehow screwing the voltage. I am not an expert at this kind of stuff so i would be glad if someone told me that i was wrong or something. I am learning .
1. Rule out volatage problems
2. Rule out Heat Problems

 

Could it be driver related at all? I just went from the 56.64 to the 43.45 drivers, and things seem to be better...at least for now.

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: FallenHero
Could it be driver related at all? I just went from the 56.64 to the 43.45 drivers, and things seem to be better...at least for now.

Doubtful. Make sure the fan is spinning fast enough. It may be heat related, I had to replace the fan on a Radeon I had because after awhile the fan was slowing down causing corruption.

 

Originally posted by: Killrose

Originally posted by: FallenHero
Could it be driver related at all? I just went from the 56.64 to the 43.45 drivers, and things seem to be better...at least for now.

Doubtful. Make sure the fan is spinning fast enough. It may be heat related, I had to replace the fan on a Radeon I had because after awhile the fan was slowing down causing corruption.

Ill check that out. I cleaned off the dust, but It could be that.

 

Well I just ordered the A1349 from zipzoomfly. Lets see how that does.