9600 GT Overheating. Need a yes/no weather to try something.

It's a PNY GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3 PCIe.

I've applied new Artic Silver 5 Premium paste and have just bought a new case with a 120cm fan blowing directly at it from the side and a top 120cm fan sucking air out.

I've also tried RivaTuner. However I'm uncertain if that's actually doing anything. I've had card since case change running at a steady 45C during game play but now it's getting hot and appears not to be cooling at all. At last reboot, it was around 82C and is now at 72C and all I've been doing is searching for a soloution to get it cooler. Temp is holding at 72C I know this is not good since black screen happens around 85C.

Driver Date: 03/04/2010
Current card Driver version: 8.17.11.9745

I'm using older drivers at moment after reading a recent driver messed up the fan speed.

I'm running out of any options I can think of all except one and here lyes my question;

If I removed the plastic cover covering the heat sink and fan so its in direct flow with the large case fan would this be a safe option? Or a complete NO WAY LEAVE IT ON!!!

 

Upgrade to latest drivers

the fan issue with 196.75

85c isn't overheating but not good. Nvidia says 105C max but I wouldn't run my card that hot.

How did you apply the paste?

Would adjust your fan speed and fan settings in riva tuner.

 

Applied the paste by cleaning off old stuff with alcohol then applied small blob in middle of chip, put heat sink back on top and twisted it a couple of times.

PC goes black screen at about 85c have updated to most recent drivers available and run a load of various Nvidia demos and temp seems to be under control with some of the more intensive applications but some games it gets hot again, the GPU fan seems to be kicking in too late, running faster when cooler (It's a distinctive noise, separable from any of the other fans!) and hear nothing when it's up in the 80's

Currently got rivatuner running fans at 100% where ever the settings are there to do so. Any suggestions there would be appreciated. It's also reporting it hasn't been tested with current driver version, uncertain if it's talking about graphics or Motherboard there?

What about removing plastic so I only have a fan and heat sink exposed on the card should I give it a try or under no circumstances do it?

Appreciate the reply.