Update: I spoke too soon... :-(

[sodcha0s]

I`m also using a Sapphire card now so I guess I better send it back since I`ve never had a problem

You can if you wish, but that was not my point. The point is that there seems to be more people having problems with Sapphire cards than others. Sorry if you take my criticism of Sapphire personally.

 

[Mem]

You can if you wish, but that was not my point. The point is that there seems to be more people having problems with Sapphire cards than others. Sorry if you take my criticism of Sapphire personally.

Actually I don`t,I`m a new ATi user(ex-Nvidia) so doesn`t bother me eitherway,Sapphire are very popular around here so I guess you should see owners with more problems then other brands.

 

Why are your fast writes on?
Turn that of using bios or smartgart.
As far as I know, Ati cards dont support fast writes. Unless they fixed that with the 9800's. My 9700 wouldnt work right until I disabled fast writes.

My 2 cents.

GM

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: gorillaman
Why are your fast writes on?
Turn that of using bios or smartgart.
As far as I know, Ati cards dont support fast writes. Unless they fixed that with the 9800's. My 9700 wouldnt work right until I disabled fast writes.

My 2 cents.

GM

GM - I just did a default install and let the ATI drivers detect everything. I've had 1 reboot and 1 freeze since the install. I turned off Fast Writes this morning and rebooted. Hope that fixes it.

Thanks!

 

[ForbiddenDonut]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: gorillaman
Why are your fast writes on?
Turn that of using bios or smartgart.
As far as I know, Ati cards dont support fast writes. Unless they fixed that with the 9800's. My 9700 wouldnt work right until I disabled fast writes.

My 2 cents.

GM

GM - I just did a default install and let the ATI drivers detect everything. I've had 1 reboot and 1 freeze since the install. I turned off Fast Writes this morning and rebooted. Hope that fixes it.

Thanks!

Hopefully that will work! However, my 9800pro hasn't had a problem with fastwrites. It's possible that this is just a bad card :frown:

good luck to you sir.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: gorillaman
Why are your fast writes on?
Turn that of using bios or smartgart.
As far as I know, Ati cards dont support fast writes. Unless they fixed that with the 9800's. My 9700 wouldnt work right until I disabled fast writes.

My 2 cents.

GM

GM - I just did a default install and let the ATI drivers detect everything. I've had 1 reboot and 1 freeze since the install. I turned off Fast Writes this morning and rebooted. Hope that fixes it.

Thanks!

How many amps does your psu supply on the +12V rail? It could be a power issue.

Do you have the video card plugged in to a separate connector that isn't connected to any other devices? Maybe you could try running the system without some of your other devices (CD/DVD Rom) and see if that helps. At least then you would know if it was a power supply problem.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximusHow many amps does your psu supply on the +12V rail? It could be a power issue.

Do you have the video card plugged in to a separate connector that isn't connected to any other devices? Maybe you could try running the system without some of your other devices (CD/DVD Rom) and see if that helps. At least then you would know if it was a power supply problem.

Do you mean checking it with a meter or looking up what the BIOS is reporting? I've got a CDROM, SCSI HD, and 4 IDE drives plugged in but I've also got a quality Enermax 430W power supply.

Not sure on the power connector - I'll check that when I get home.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: JulesMaximusHow many amps does your psu supply on the +12V rail? It could be a power issue.

Do you have the video card plugged in to a separate connector that isn't connected to any other devices? Maybe you could try running the system without some of your other devices (CD/DVD Rom) and see if that helps. At least then you would know if it was a power supply problem.

Do you mean checking it with a meter or looking up what the BIOS is reporting? I've got a CDROM, SCSI HD, and 4 IDE drives plugged in but I've also got a quality Enermax 430W power supply.

Not sure on the power connector - I'll check that when I get home.

There should be a decal on the power supply indicating how many amps the 12V rail supplies. Since the overall power rating is a sum of each rail it could be that your 12V rail is overloaded even though you have a power supply rated at 430W. Try removing a couple of those devices and running the system like that and see if your problem goes away.

Also, ATI recommends that the video card not share it's power connection with other devices (probably for this very reason).

 

[JulesMaximus]

Do you have any lighting or case fans? Those also draw power off the 12V rail. I suspect that this is your problem. You may have been right on the edge of your power supply's ability to provide power to all your devices before the upgrade and now you've gone past it with this new card.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: RoborThere should be a decal on the power supply indicating how many amps the 12V rail supplies. Since the overall power rating is a sum of each rail it could be that your 12V rail is overloaded even though you have a power supply rated at 430W. Try removing a couple of those devices and running the system like that and see if your problem goes away.

Also, ATI recommends that the video card not share it's power connection with other devices (probably for this very reason).

I popped open the case and it's 20A on the +12V. The cable is sharing a cable with a fan. The only devices I can eliminate are my CDROM and some 80MM fans I've got running. I don't believe heat is an issue because I can old my finger on the HS and RAM chips. They're very warm but not what I'd call hot. I'll turn off my 2 front case fans and run with it open to see if that help.

Originally posted by: JulesMaximusDo you have any lighting or case fans? Those also draw power off the 12V rail. I suspect that this is your problem. You may have been right on the edge of your power supply's ability to provide power to all your devices before the upgrade and now you've gone past it with this new card.

No lighting but additional case fans. As stated above, I'm going to power down and shut off 2 of them and put the card on it's own power cable.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

 

[JulesMaximus]

So, the +12V rail at 20A equals 240W. Watts = Volts x Amps. So, your 430W power supply is only providing 240W to the 12V rail which is actually pretty good and adequate for most systems.

Those 4 IDE hard drives are consuming the most power. Those likely draw about 2.8-3.0A each. I'm not sure what the video card uses though but using rough estimates on the other devices you mention you are around 15-16A or roughly 192W not including the video card. Also, you might check your bios or hardware monitor to see if the +12V rail is actually providing close to 12V. I would still try running the system with less demand on that +12V rail and see if your problem goes away.

It isn't very likely that all of these devices are running at the same time but I suppose it is possible. Can you get rid of some of those hard drives? Your case fans only draw about .2-.3A and the CD-ROM is probably around 1.5A.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
So, the +12V rail at 20A equals 240W. Watts = Volts x Amps. So, your 430W power supply is only providing 240W to the 12V rail which is actually pretty good and adequate for most systems.

Those 4 IDE hard drives are consuming the most power. Those likely draw about 2.8-3.0A each. I'm not sure what the video card uses though but using rough estimates on the other devices you mention you are around 15-16A or roughly 192W not including the video card. Also, you might check your bios or hardware monitor to see if the +12V rail is actually providing close to 12V. I would still try running the system with less demand on that +12V rail and see if your problem goes away.

It isn't very likely that all of these devices are running at the same time but I suppose it is possible. Can you get rid of some of those hard drives? Your case fans only draw about .2-.3A and the CD-ROM is probably around 1.5A.

I'm stuck with the hard drives. The IDE hard drives (4 total) are part of a RAID 0+1 array so I can't lose them and my system boots off of the SCSI drive. I unplugged 3 of the case fans - only have 2 80mm fans blowing across the RAID array now. I'll check the +12V reading on my next reboot.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I'll try to find some data for you on the power requirements of the ATI video card. Other than hearsay I have no data on that.

 

[KashGarinn]

I'm just wondering, what kind of performance are you getting out of the card today?

I had starting problems installing my ATI 9800 pro 128MB. The problem was that I couldn't run 3dmark (or other 3d progs). I discovered that in troubleshooting that hardware wasn't set to full acceleration.

What I'd do is take the card to a friend and see if it behaves the same at his place. If so, then you've just had the bad luck of getting a faulty card.

But believe me, the radeon 9800 pro is a sweet, sweet card. I'm running everything at full quality 6xAA, 16x aniso.. EVE-online never looked as beautiful

K.

 

[Robor]

What I have seen of the card so far is beautiful. I really hope I'm able to get this thing stable. So far I've only been able to play a few games (Ghost Recon and the XIII demo) without crashes. Some launch and crash while others bomb on launch. I don't blame the Radeon for that though. When I install games I always put them on my 2nd hard drive (RAID array). I haven't reinstalled the games since reloading the system. Just tried to launch them from the old install done under the GF4 so I might be missing some files or registry entries. I'll have to reinstall the games and retry.

I've got a 2nd system up and running. Use it for additional storage and ripping DVD's. I hate to mess with it just because it's so stable (no coasters made). I was going to kick my GF4-4200 to it but now I'm waiting until I see if this Radeon is bad or what.

On a positive note - my system with the Radeon has stayed up for 36 hours without a freeze. I've changed the power lead as JulesMaximus suggested and I'm running with the side cover off. If it is finally stable I'll have to find out if it's heat or power causing the problem.

 

[Megatomic]

Glad you are making progress Robor.

 

[Shade4ever]

Originally posted by: oldfart
I've had several ATi and nVidia cards. Whenever I change one, it's add/remove programs, uninstall the drivers, install the new card and put the new drivers in. Never once had to do an OS install.

Heh, I can agree...Latest swap, GF3 to a 9800P, went w/o any issues...Just before I reformatted due to drive changes, I looked at my control panel, and still had all my nvidia stuff on there...guess I got lucky not having any issues.

 

[Mingon]

After re-installing from a ti500 gef3 to a 9600pro I had as many issues. So far the only game to work no problems has been solitare I have had problems with MGS2, Vice city and Unreal tournament (only on 428 patch at the moment).

 

[billyjak]

The best proceedure when going from N-Vidia to ATi is a fresh install.
I went through the same crap with my 9800 Pro renistalled OS and runs great ever since.
I haven't found a game that dosen't play as of yet. Including UT, UT2003, Wolfenstein, BF1942,Medal of Honor and many others.

 

[flundval]

I also had a really strange problem with the comp freezing at different times.
random freezes is SOOO annoying cause there is no way to understand whats causing them.
The strange thing was that I could play games like counter-strike as long as I wanted without freeze.
But when I got out to windows the comp would freeze randomly.

In the desperation after trying all patches/drivers/bios/settings I at last bought a new powersupply.
I haven?t had any prob since so I must have found the problem....

so if you have tried everything else try switching powersupply