Graphics Card Overheating

I think my Nvidia 8600 GTS OC is overheating. It's locking up my computer games and causing my display driver to crash, and my computer turns out looking like some ripped 3,000 colors out of it. What should I do?

Another guy mentioned I should underclock it, and it would run efficiently, can I do this and how?

What are you using to monitor temps?

Your best bet is to throw another fan in your case if your overheating. Underclocking is an option, but I'd rather see you take care of the heat problem through ventilation. To underclock you should be able to use nTune and also monitor your temps since my guess is you have no idea what they actually are, your just guessing it's overheating.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/sysutility.html

OK so I downloaded and installed Ntune and I'm looking at my Nvidia monitor. It shows my temperature GPU1 - 63 degrees Celsius. this is just running the PC, I'll try it when I run rFactor now...79 degrees Celsius and 45 Frames per second..I should be getting over 100

Heat is definately the issue. Check the openings in your case for dust, cat hair, small children etc. and install another fan if needed. I'm running the same card, machine is overclocked and I have no problems, but i have 2 fans in the case and some custom duct work to channel the heat out.

Yeah, get some fans in there. Apparently the 8XXX's run quite hot.

heat is not your problem, 73c is only in the 160f degree range.. No problem there. My card sees 180f most of the time when playing HL2 and such

Sounds like bad drivers or a faulty card, heat is deffinetly not the culprit