Videocard overheating maybe?

after about 30 minutes of playing world of warcraft, I've been getting these weird "crashes". The screen is still showing the image, except I can't do anything (alt tab, ctrl+alt+del, etc). I would have to reboot to get rid of this. i have a feeling it is my 9800pro that is overheating. Since the card doesn't have a temperature monitor, I have no idea of how hot it is running. But when i'm just idling on desktop, the heatsink (stock) is scalding to touch. My cpu is idling around 44 celsius.

You know I was having the same problem, I think it has something to do with the new patch, although I could be wrong.

If your video is that hot(scalding) I'd say that is a major part of the problem. 44C on the CPU, while not great, isn't a killer, but burning yourself on the GPU sucks bigtime.

That's precisely what happens during a regular heat-induced GPU crash.

try putting a regular case fan onto the heatsink and playing WoW. If the computer/vga still crashes, heat probably isn't your problem. If it doesn't crash, then secure the fan and move on with your life.

I was planning on getting a new heatsink for the videocard rather than strapping an extra fan on it. Is the Zalman vf700 any good for it?