9800 Pro artifacting

[MagicBoy]

I've just acquired a Connect3d Radeon 9800 Pro from popular auction site which arrived today. It's running OK for about 5 minutes from cold, but I start getting random artifacts on the desktop and glitches in games after this.

I've downloaded ATITool and clocked the RAM down from 338 to 310 and it's solved the problem and quite happily runs 3dMark.

Are a set of ramsinks or an upgraded cooler going to allow me to run it at stock speeds, or you reckon I should send it back in case it might die totally. It was advertised as fully working, for sale due to upgrade.

 

[Salsa]

If its not running at stock without artifacting then its not fully working as advertised. Ramsinks could lower your temps and stop this happening but if it doesnt then you have wasted money buying them and will need to send it back anyway.

 

[Troop]

Try taking the cooler off the gpu, and reapplying the thermal paste.

Are you seeing tearing or a check board effect ?

 

[MagicBoy]

It's random little blobs at the windows XP desktop. Chuck something 3D at it like C&C Tiberium Wars or 3DMark and there are more nasty glitches that obliterate the areas of the screen when things start moving. I'm using a decent 350W PSU, the 9800 is sharing a power spur with the floppy drive. Case is well ventilated with 4x80mm Panaflo fans. RAM is Hynix, I guess 2.8ns by the markings.

I'm a bit wary of pulling the heatsink off as if I send it back and it's been butchered about it might cause grief.