Video crashes upon loading complex textures.

I've been having an incredibly annoying problem ever since I upgraded my system half a year ago where my video card randomly crashes out* upon trying to load complex textures. If the textures do manage to load, everything continues to run fine. I have updated my video, motherboard, and sound card drivers numerous times since and nothing has helped.

Examples of this occurring: In CS:S when I'd attempt to access in-game HTML, such as a server's stats page or in-game internet radio, in CS:S and Dystopia when an unseen character model appears on the screen (only on max texture settings), during F.E.A.R. upon loading unseen models with almost any settings above the minimal.

Here are my specs:
AMD 64-bit 4000+ socket 939 processor.
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard.
2x 512mb DDR RAM chips.
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 meg video card.
Blue Storm 500 power supply.
250 gig Maxtor Ultra ATA with 8mb cache.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

*Note: By "crashing out" I mean the video card stops performing properly. When it first happened, the game I was playing simply crashed and I received a message saying something to the effect that my video drivers failed to initialize properly. Now, usually, the screen simply freezes. After awhile, I can ctrl+alt+del to the task manager, but the only reason I know it gets that far is because the random pixels on my screen change color upon hitting the key combo.

 

Hi mate I know your probably sick of reinstalling drivers,but first step is to completely remove any remnants of the old drivers that may have bacome corrupted use either ATI catalyst uninstaller or driver cleaner pro

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ef109fff37cbb40aaf28&accountID=737&deptID=894

http://majorgeeks.com/Driver_Cleaner_Professional_d3214.html

Then reinstall the latest windows certified catalyst from ATI

 

I've already tried this before, but I tried again for the hell of it. No luck. Is it possible that it's related to overheating? I've physically felt the video card multiple times after the crashes and it was only warm, but perhaps there's something I don't know.

 

How old is your video card?

 

I have a Radeon 9800pro 128 (its the All-in-wonder) and I had a problem with it overheating with the smallest of loads. Do you think it could be overheating on you? I had to install an after-market fan/heatsink for it to work. That did the trick, and it has been stable since.

 

My video card is one and a half years old. Now I'm experience lock-ups/resets with LotR: Battle for Middle Earth II. I eventually crash when textures are set to high, but when textures are set to medium, everything is fine. The key factor in every game seems to be my texture detail setting.

I already use an alternate cooling source for the card, which cost me about $30. I've been using it for roughly 9 months. I had to replace the stock cooling fan when I accidentally ruined it with an air compressor. I had to WD40 the friggin' thing every week to keep it running after that.