Graphical artifacts can be a sign of a damaged videocard, 96C is very hot and can certainly permanently damage your card which is probably what's happened here. I lost one (or rather, lost its ability to run at temperatures it used to run at well) when I regularly ran it at 73-74C. I recommend a program like Rivatuner in the future (maybe Speedfan can do the same thing), you can change the settings of the fan to run based on GPU temperature. I have my fan run at 100% when the temperature gets to a certain level (usually anything abouve 58C, but it depends on a cards' tolerance to heat). Fans on a device are there to disperse the heat, especially into a heat sink. The heat will dissipate into the surrounding area, so a good air current, especially in the area the heat dissipates, is important to get it out of your PC (since a fan doesn't actually do any temperature change itself) as fast as possible. Anything close to the source of the heat should be directed out of the PC. But I'm sorry to say that your card may be on the slow march toward its death. You can extend its life by running it cooler and not playing games that tax it for as long a period of time. The card of mine that I more or less burnt out still works for low level tasks. Anytime I let it go above 50-55C it gets massive artifacts everywhere, when that was at one point a normal, good temperature for it to run at.