That there ' s a distortion hole , ' cause that cat got the shit distorted out of him . <| sep |> I ' ve not heard of CPU overheating causing graphical artifacts , but I could be wrong . What usually happens when a CPU overheats is 1 . The CPU will attempt to downclock itself in order to reduce heat output . This is called throttling and can be monitored via the CPUID HWMonitor program . Performance is reduced as a result . Usually , this is enough to keep the temperature at safe levels if the cooling solution is at least still working somewhat . 2 . If the throttling technology fails to reduce heat , the system simply turns itself off to prevent damage to the CPU . This usually happens if it hits extreme levels . It ' s a safety mechanism to safeguard your processor . You don ' t want it frying itself . Artifacts on screen are usually caused by a problem with the GPU . A replacement should fix this unless there ' s something else going on . If a GPU replacement does not fix it , then he may have a deeper issue with his PC . What CPU does he have ? He can pull a list of his specs by downloading Speccy .