Video games artifacting/freezing/sputtering?

[GT2000]

These are classic signs of video card problems, more notably, heat.

I had these issues last week with Battlefield 2142. Running 2 Evga 7800gts in sli, made it a bit easier, although more time consuming, to troubleshoot. I noticed that during bf2142 sessions my video temps would go over 100c..and eventually peak at the 115c threshold that the Nvidia control panel sets. It was at that point where the game would freeze and cause me to force a reboot.

Having the 2 cards helped me troubleshoot this, I pulled one of the cards and never saw temps over 88c, this is about the temp at which the fan was kicking into overdrive and dropping the temperature back down to the low 80s (still a bit too hot for my liking but ambient temps are no good). So I threw in the other card and started to experience the same issues, temps pushing 100c+ and locking up.

So out of curiosity I logged into my Newegg account to check when I purchased the cards, and if I would still be able to RMA them.. purchase date was 1/06/06, RMA was available for replacement or repair. Score.

As of now I'm waiting on word back from Newegg on either a like replacement item or a refund of the current market value (not to exceed the original purchase price of course).

So as always, Newegg proves to be superior when it comes to customer service , and the temperature in my room continues to be good at destroying hardware.