Graphics card glitching out??

Hi. I am getting very worried here. This now has happened four times. First of, my graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 3800 series (I think 3870). Well, what happened the first time is I was on my desktop with nothing running in the background (nothing major) and all of sudden I see black, gray, and white huge pix-elated boxes across the screen horizontally and vertically. 2nd time it showed some pink randomly while i was playing the game, and 3rd time it kinda captured the screen but with lots of random colors (mostly black, gray, and white), and for the last time it did the same thing as last while playing the game. All showing these huge pix-elated boxes.. Kinda like when the tv is going static but all these pixels (big ones) are fixed.. not moving randomly around across the screen.

So, what is going on here? How do I solve this problem? I'm assuming it's my graphics card aging or glitching out. The only way to get out of this when I encountered those issues is to restart the computer and everything went back normal. It just happens randomly. It would be fine for couple hours after restarting then it does it again.

EDIT: It's been since 2008... since I been using this computer. I think it is dying. The temperature is 80 degrees when I load up a game and in idle mode it's around 55 degrees.

Will packing it in ice or using some mini-fan or something help?

Change your driver. Update to the latest one, and if you already have it then get the one before it. And see if this happens again.
You should also make sure the GPU isn't overheating. Get GPU-Z and have it log your temps to a file, and check it after that glitch happens.

Yeah... That sounds troubling. I haven't ever seen anything like that before.

if it's not the video card maybe it could be the cable or a loose connection between the monitor and graphics card. If that's not it then I'm not sure. You didn't mention anything about overclocking, which has been known to cause artifacts to appear when you crank it up too high.

How is the condition of your case? It never hurts to take out the video card and clean the dust out of it.

But this driver has been updated for at least a year... im sure it's not the driver issue. I'm sure GPU isn't overheating neither. Last I checked, it was at a very good temperature which was coulple months ago. Though I should check it out again then. I'll check make sure everything is plugged in tightly (im sure it is). I do not overclock. I shall dust it out then. It is not too dusty neither.

EDIT: Ok I used GPU-Z and it's around 56 degrees

Shit, that's pretty high if you are just idle.. If that is the temperature of it running not being under load then it is probably a heat issue. I could see it possibly getting that hot if you had it under 100% load but not idle. My nvidia 760 idles at around 30 C.

Sounds like it is dying. I bet you've had it a good few years.

@ferrari2001: Yeah it was idle. And... it seems to happen more often when I play video games. DAMN... time to build a new computer??

Well after vacuuming it out... it's now at 50 degrees. Seems to help a little.

Any other ways to lower down the temperature then??

EDIT: *sigh* nevermind it's going back up to 56. It's because I had the computer off for a while.

Holy crap... it skyrocketed up to 80 degrees when I just loaded a game up.

Will packing it in ice or using some mini-fan help stabilize it and make it last longer???

Yeah... :(

I'm proud of it though. Been well since 2008.

You could always purchase a new gpu cooler, or try removing the cooler and applying new thermo paste. But more than likely it's on it's last leg and it pumping more power to the cores to keep it running, thus the heating problem. Better to just purchase a new card than trying to fix it.

Those temps are normal for a 3870. I think it's just on its way out.