Artifacts and underclocking

I posted here before about my brand new computer having video card problems.

Well I've now looked into it more. I tried downloading the newest version of the video card driver today and yet these artifacts occur. Sometimes my screen goes black for 5seconds, and I get an error message saying that AMD driver crashed and came back.

The red artifacts tend to trace the outlines of windows and other objects. Often the boxes are only on my toolbar and disappear when I move my mouse on them.

With weeks of googling I figured that not overclocking, but underclocking could probably fix this issue? My question is... is underclocking dangerous just like overclocking? Because it doesn't seem to me that lowering the heat would in any way damage the card.

I will also take other recommedations to fix this issue. Like, is there a way to automatically update my driver in AMD's Catalyst Control Center? I'm not exactly sure if I got the up-to-date version when I downloaded new version. Because after this, it wanted to update again, from version 1.8 to 1.9, even though I was supposed to get the NEWEST version of the driver from the site?

Additional information:

Computer model: Acer Aspire X3950
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5570
Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU 550 @ 3.20GHz, Dual-Core

Underclocking shouldn't harm your computer like overclocking could, but it can be as much or more likely as overclocking in causing your computer to be less stable.

As for the version I don't know much about Catalyst and auto-updating but you should just be able to fish around online and find the newest Beta drivers for ATI. The problems you're describing sound to me like faulty drivers or a dying video card.

I know that your original question has been answered, but, just out of curiosity, I want to know how you concluded that underclocking would fix your issue. The way I understand it is that the main danger in overclocking is overheating, so unless your computer was already running at a dangerously high temperature, which doesn't seem likely for a new computer.

Also, were you able to find the beta drivers as Darkning recommended and did it solve your problem? One of the first questions to ask when troubleshooting is "Has anything recently changed?", but since you said your computer is brand new (How old?), it seems like your computer never worked correctly in the first place.

So yeah, can you update all of us on how everything is going?

If it is brand new, call Acer and get it replaced/fixed under warranty.