ATI 9800 ..problems

[comphollic]

After many months of usage, my ATI 9800np has now been giving me problems...I was playing a game and all of a suddent wierd colored blocks started to show up, shut down my comp and noticed inside my comp was a bit warm...set the case fan speed to high and started the comp again, everything seemed ok ...but then i noticed my icons are messed up and small blocks show up in the windowsXP Boot screen...
the fan on the vid card was always running..what do u think is wrong with my comp?
does it need to be replaced now?
plz help

 

[otispunkmeyer]

sounds like a heat prob.....ur card is not overclocked is it?...tho they run pretty hot normally any way
havent had any power surges or anthing like that? try some more coooling fans in your rig or possibly a beeter cooler for the 9800....arctic coolings VGA silencer is a good buy.

 

[comphollic]

no its not overclocked...and never was
i also tried to open leave the case open to see if it would improve...but still the same
I dont know if it could be the power supply, though i do have the card on a dell...
It only shows vertical horizontal blocks only when Windows XP boots up , not during the bios boot..
icons are messed up but there is no vertical blocks in the screen during normal usage..
I installed new drivers just now, but after the restart i tried to boot up my comp but now it cant go past Windows XP boot ... screen goes blank and the monitor LED is amber...i press shut down button once to see if it would shut down automatically and it does, so i guess it still working, but screen is still blank...
any solutions to this...????
btw thx for the reply