Radeon 9800 destroying power connectors

[Kaze]

Alright, I'm having trouble with a computer I built more than three years ago. Up until this problem it's been dandy.

It's an ASUS mobo with an athlon 2800. My problem is that about six months ago my computer booted up with a warning that the Radeon 9800 Pro's power connector was not plugged in. Upon inspecting the connector, I discovered that the slot on the very end (the red wire) had been completely scorched. Having plenty of left over power connectors, I simply plugged another in and went on with my business. I assumed that it had simply been some type of power surge (even though I use an APC surge protector). Fast forward to tonight and I got the same message again. Checking the connector reveals the same problem, the slot on the end, the red wire, has been fried.

So my question is: Is my Radeon burning these out or is it the Antec True430w power supply? Is the power supply too weak? What do I need to replace?

[Fallen Angel]

i think your power supply is too weak... same thing happened to me a while ago.. i got a 650watt on eBay for like 30-40$ .. easy fix

For what it's worth - I recall an old thread here where Kodo and another MG were discussing this very problem (I was having my own problems with a Radeon 9800 Pro AIW, and was digesting all the data I could find).

At any rate, one person discovered the problem was their motherboard wasn't seated properly which caused a short, and that was somehow causing the card to draw too much power. This apparantly fixed his problem.

As I recall Kodo was of the mind it was a power supply issue . . . he found his was bad and was going to replace it - but I never saw a followup post. I tried a forum search but no luck.

I realise this is anecdotal and not much help. The "crispy connector" problem on these cards seem to be very common. My only issue with my Radeon 9800 Pro AIW was the GPU overheating - I had to buy an aftermarket GPU fan and HS to get it to work at all. Since then, no problems.