ok so my computer for the most part works perfectly fine but when I'm playing games like skyrim after a little while of playing the game starts artifacting and half crashing (the screen goes all black and then the game comes back working fine for a little while then it happens again every now and again) now these seem like the graphics card overheating to me but I've had my computer set up like this for almost 2 years now and I've checked for viruses with multiple programs is there something i might have overlooked?

oh and I've played games like skyrim for hours upon hours sometimes without ever haveing problems

Maybe try to re-route cables in the way of the GPU. Maybe cable have shaken in front on it's heatsink. Also, verify that all your cooling is working properly. If not, maybe it is a driver issue for your hardware.

no ive checked inside the computer and it doesnt seem to have any issues with cables or dust and ive checked and i have the latest driver

Okay that is a good sign in terms of hardware. Now it must be something else. One very important thing to remember is that just because you have the latest driver, it does not mean that it will work properly. Check compatability of your GPU driver with your BIOS firmware. Also, does this only happen on one game? I would do some research to see if anyone else is having this problem with your GPU or GPU firmware.