ATI AIW 9800 - burnt +5v terminal on card/power cable?

[wasssup]

I've got an "old" Compaq (7/2005 mfg date) with an
-Athlon XP3400+ 64-bit cpu,
-2 optical drives,
-one (previously two) harddrives,
-ATI AIW 9800,
-and the stock 300w power supply

Here's the problem- the +5v terminal on the videocard looks "burnt" and so does the power cable (well the positive end on the adapter that plugs into the terminal on the videocard). I kept having issues with my computer giving "videocard is not plugged into power supply" error messages, so I finally shaved off the burnt top layer of the pin on the videocard and spliced another cable onto ATI's proprietary(?) and all seems good. It's been 30 minutes and no problems yet, anyway. I'm going to solder it and wrap the cut in electrical tape after a few more hours of testing.

What do you guys think the problem is? I'm thinking the stock PS just plain sucks, but this is the only component affected so I don't know. I'm not really into computers anymore, just use it to check my stocks, email, and other stupid things but nothing remotely power intensive hence my wanting to fix this crap.

 

[Seggybop]

I don't really have anything helpful to say, but I remember this happening to one of my friends with a 9800 a few times. He returned the first one, but it happened to the new one after a while.

 

[wasssup]

No problem, I'll do some research to see if it's an inherent problem with the card itself. Unfortunately it's a few years old and way out of warranty. It's been working since last night and will probably continue to do so till the terminals burn out again (which I'm fine with, but I don't want this thing to light up and burn my house down).