Radeon 9800 Pro Problems...

Hi all. First time here. I've been having alot of problems with my Radeon 9800 Pro.

My comp is...

ASUS A7V8X-X
Athlon XP 2500 Barton
512 Kingston "ValueRam"
Maxtor 80 Gig 8mb cache 7200 RPM
52X CDROM (Pioneer I believe, but this is not the prob)
ATi Radeon Pro 9800 128 MB
MS Multimedia Keyboard
MS Optical Mouse
350W PSU (Cybertek I think)

Windows XP
Latest Cat Drivers (4.7)


Whenever I play a game that's demanding or even not too demanding, my computer either reboots randomly or it crashes to desktop. Can be anywhere from 30 second to 30 mins, which pisses me off because after 35 mins I'm thinking "YES I've fixed it...no wait"

Anyways, I've googled my situation and apparently there are alot of people having probs with A7V8X-X mobos and Radeons (or any AGP 8X card for that matter). Now I checked the online manual for my mobo and it says that it supports 8X alright, but it specifies 8X Card (1.5V ONLY). My Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB is a 0.8V 8X card. Could this be the source of my problems? Also some people were saying it could be the PSU, but then others were saying they've bought new PSU's (500W) and still the problem is there. Others were saying could be RAM (nope I did a memtest) others saying that VIA 4in1 is to blame. I don't care dammit I just want to play with my Radeon without having a morbid fear of a random reboot! It's almost to the point of where I'm doubting that Radeon's work anywhere, that it's all a conspiracy, they don't actually work. Also my GF5200 was doing it too but MUCH less. I thought I had fixed the problem when I saw my HDD was running at 48C instead of the normal 35C to 40C. I placed it on a lower shelf and it cooled to like 25C to 35C. My 5200 still froze but I doubt it's the HDD, I think it's because of the fact that I've been uninstalling reinstalling both of these cards for days now so I have tons of drivers mixed up I think. But like I said that's not the real problem (mixed drivers) because it was doing it before I reinstalled/installed alot.
As far as the PSU, I unplugged everything except one hdd and the video card. It still did it, so I don't think the card is missing power. They were the only two devices on a 350W PSU.

Anyways I've decided that it's the damn cheapo board that's my prob so I'm thinking of getting an Abit NF7 (2.0) board and crossing my fingers. What do you guys think? Does anyone here have an Abit NF7 board running with a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB? Thanks for any suggestions.

 

the problem you are having could be a nummber of things,I would guess overheating if you asked me. As far as motherboards go, Im a die hard gigabyte fan and always will be. so thats my suggestions

 

Update...

Hi all, here's an update. I went in to the shop last night and explained the situation about the random reboots and freezes and he said "well which card are you trying to run?" When I told him it was Radeon 9800 Pro, he looked at my PSU and started grinning. He said "I guarantee you it's your PSU" He said that's why after 10 mins up to 30 mins you reboot, it can't take it anymore. So I bought a darn ISO PSU (91$) and did a fresh install of XP and it STILL happened lastnight! WTF. Anyways. Now I'm gonna go trade in my ASUS A7V8X-X piece of crap for an Abit NF7-S 2.0 Mobo. Hopefully all of my probs will dissapear and I will be able to live happily ever after! I will keep you guys posted. Thanks for the replies (even though just one). If this doesn't work tonight and it reboots again I will return the Radeon and give up. I will stick with the GForce 5200 I guess.



I hate computer hardware / software problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well, I have a 9800 pro, and it works great. I have a 400w PSU, and that shouldn't be your problem, if it was, then I would imagine the whole computer would shut down, but because it just goes back to the desktop, it sounds like only the card is going offline which is a safety feature for overheating to prevent it from melting. A buddy of mine has a 9800pro AIW, and he said that it was shutting down (the card, not the whole computer) after a few hours of play, but that doesn't mean that it can't happen after 30 minutes.

Another thing: When I first got my computer (about 5-6 weeks ago) and I installed the card, in the middle of a game, my whole computer just shut off completely, so I turned it back on about 5 minutes later. After that, it ran okay until I started to play the same game again and it did the same thing, only this time, it would not turn back on. I tried getting a new PSU (found a 400w at a little store by my work for $21.15), and that didn't work so I had to send my whole unit back to new york cause it was a custom made one. It works great now, and I am pretty sure that all they did was throw in a new mobo.

But I digress, as far as the games stopping running, to me it sounds like an overheating problem. I was having a SLIGHT irritance playing halo with the frames getting slow only once or twice which is too much in my opinion for such a top of the line card, so I've been looking into a new cooler for the card. I can't recommend one cause I don't know which ones are good, but I'm still looking into it, and I think that you might want to do likewise

 

Arctic Silencer

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/en/products/vga_silencer/

Works great! Very cool!



cooked

 

I wouldn't fault the tech guy. I would have probably said PSU, too, but I would've pulled out a Watt meter to check it.

Next likely suspects include (assuming you reset with no blue screens at all):
1. Bad/damaged memory (Run MemTest86 overnight)
2. Overheating (either CPU or video card)
3. Something extremely simple, such as a loose connection.

 

I had the same problem with my 9700 Pro... but i have a 400 Watt PSU. But I was also running an older DirectX ( 8.1 I think it was at the time.) Anyway, I bumped it up ti 9.0b and so far so good... but then again this was a few months ago, and have no idea if this has any bearing on the problem :\

 

-= Update 2 =-

Ok guys, I got a new PSU (425) and it still was doing it. Then I said ok f this I'm gonna get a new mobo (got abit nf7-s) and it's been working great so far not one single crash to desktop or random reboot though I am getting a ticking noise / sound from the computer every so often only when playing games. I wonder if it's the graphics card....but anyways it's working great so I'm not gonna complain. But still, it's annoying as hell to hear a "TICK" every min or so while playing a MMORPG.

 

Check to see if any cables are in the way of the CPU, chipset, or video card fan. The system might be turning the fan on and off and hitting a cable with the fan blades. It also might just be a HDD seek.

 

could be your cpu overheating