My radeon x1900 is dying. Please help.?

Question

I bought my ATI Radeon x1900 GT about a year ago. Up until a few months ago, it was awesome. I could run any game full settings, no problem. then it went down hill. First, i started to get these annyoing display corruptions when i was playing Oblivion... they are these god awful triangles at that stretch off textures during 3D games, taking up screen space and buggin the S*** out of me. it soon spread to ALL my 3D games. Then, i started getting game crashes. The game would freeze, then i would get a message saying "VPU Recover blah blah blah Your video processor was not taking commands" or something. It only happened on a few games, and usually after i had been playing for half an hour at least. Ever since it started happening its been getting worse. Today, i couldnt play HL2 for a min without reappy ba corruptions then a crash. Some games are working fine but most are totally dead. the bad games: Half-Life 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Oblivion, BF2, and other video intensive games. Any help!?!?

Answer 1

your card is obviously overheating;
one of the simple reason could be that it has gotten dusty and that the card's original cooling, in itself up to he job, may not work properly anymore.
open the case, take the card out (and away from the computer...), blow the dust out. after putting it back in it should work fine again, for a few months, that is.
keeping the PC in a dust free environment would be a good idea (vacuuming every week?)

Answer 2

Your video card is overheating, those are without a doubt telltale signs of an overheating graphics card. Improve the airflow in the case, and you may even consider buying some type of third party graphics card heatsink, or an exhaust fan for the graphics card to help cool it down.

Answer 3

about the only things you can do are ....
improve the airflow / check it is cooling properly
take it out check the contacts are clean and reseat it
reinstall the drivers
send it back if it is under warranty