9600XT Artifacting

[UnclePow]

A freind of mine recently put together a system with the following specs:

Athlon XP 3000+ 400 FSB
512 MB DDR400 OCZ memory
Abit NF7-S mobo
Radeon 9600XT video card (Connect 3D brand)

When he plays certain games such as KoToR, Battlefield, and Morrowind, he gets really bad artifacting. On other games (Quake 3 engine based specifically) there are no problems. He has the newest Catalyst 4.5 drivers installed and we have tried multiple graphical quality settings from extreme low to extreme high. He is not overclocking although the problem seems to be similar to that of OCing. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to solve this problem please post your answer.

Thank you.

[stratcatprowlin]

Sounds like a cooling issue to me.

Check to see if the heatsink fan is running.
Check your case temps.They might be too high.

And finally the heatsink fan might have been installed poorly,so it might not be getting enough contact with the core.In that case the only way to find out is to take it off and install it properly with enough thermal grease.

But.....If you dont know what your doing I would return it just in case you make matters worse and lose your warranty.

[Z YA LTR]

It definatly sounds like a heat problem . I would check the heatsink and make sure it is seated properly. I would take it off anyway and put some as5 on it.

--Josh