Sapphire 1950XT sudden Overheat

[DPOverLord]

Greetings,
I have a Sapphire @1950XT which is 9 months old. I have played games such as TF2, COD4, WoW and recently C&C3. For the last week I have begun to have issues with overheating. I have never had an issue but the Temperature has started to go above 80C. At one point my computer beeped and it was at 95C. I immediately stopped the game. I am first very curious as to what could be causing this. Currently I have nothing O/C and I have never had an Overheating issue. What is causing the GPU to get so high? Any ideas? I would very much appreciate any help.
The pictures of my case are here:
http://tinyurl.com/3b536f

Jonathan

 

[potato28]

If you have stock cooling replace it with an Accelro X2 for the x19xx series. Had problems like that with my x1900gt and its still running fine with the X2 on it.

 

[DPOverLord]

The thing is though that this just started. You would think I would see this issue before the 11 month mark.

 

[zeroburrito]

did you check and see if there is any dust in the heatsink? even a small amount will raise the temps dramatically.

 

[DPOverLord]

Yes,
I took the excess dust out, but I still get high 80s now

 

[milesl]

I had overheating issues after 8 months on a geforce card.Turned out the GPU and the heat sink were both concave leaving a big gap that was filled with Thermal Interface Material.When the tim dried out over time it left a gap causing the card to overheat ,artifact,ect.

I put a different heatsink on it that was flatter and some new heat sink paste.It helped the card continue to function.the GPU still ran hot but did not artifact or crash anymore.I could have lapped the GPU,but I did not have another card or the money to replace it at the time.

If you still have a warranty on the card RMA it.If you feel ok with taking it apart and checking the tim and checking surface contact or surface flatness with a straight edge then you should be able to solve the issue.
Good Luck.