Possible issues with Radeon 9800 Pro?

[kgbdrummer]

Hey guys, first post. Neat.

So I just upgraded my machine to an Athlon XP 3200+, 1gb DDR400, and a Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb. I'm using an older Antec case along with the 400W PSU that came with it, Asus A7N8X Deluxe (PCB 1.xx), Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum, 4 case fans, (2) 7200rpm hard drives, Pioneer A05 DVD-R/W. I did a clean install of Windows, updated all the drivers (Cat 4.6, new mobo drivers, etc.). The system runs great in 2D environments. I did burn in tests with Sandra 2004 and the CPU and memory both work fine. But when I try to run anything in 3d (3DMark03 for example), after a few seconds the monitor cuts out, loses signal and the computer hangs. I don't get any artifacting, so I'm pretty sure it's not a heat issue.

Do any of you have any ideas? One thing I've been unable to test yet is whether I have enough power. With all my peripherals, my consumption is pretty close to 400 watts, so I'm wondering if the Radeon just can't pull enough power or what? Anyway, let me know what you think.

-KGB Drummer

 

[Bucksnort]

Is your monitors .inf file installed? Check the display tab in cat and make sure its set to single default monitor. There are lots of threads on this issue on rage3d in the cat technical support forum.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33752579

 

[kgbdrummer]

Thanks for the link, Bucksnort; I'll go through that thread and see if I can't find something that will fix my problem. I did install the driver for my monitor (Sony E540) and it's set as the default and only monitor in the display properties, so that's not it. I may try reinstalling the drivers that come with the card, just to see if it's a driver issue or what. Thanks again!

 

[sep]

If you think it?s power then pull everything out (sound card, etc.) and unplug everything except your primary hard drive. That should tell you if you don?t have enough power.

Other things to try. Make sure the card is fully seated in the agp slot. Make sure the fan is running on the GPU. Don?t use extension cables for the video card power. Plug it directly from a power led coming from the power supply.

Let us know?
-JC

 

[kgbdrummer]

Sep/JC - Thanks for the suggestion about the power requirement; I dont know why I didnt try that sooner. Tried it out, and it's definitely not the PSU (same result with nothing but 1 HD and the Radeon). On the plus side: I think I figured out what the problem is: as it turns out, the A7N8X Deluxe only supports 400Mhz FSB as of PCB revision 2.0 (1.xx only officially supports up to 333mhz). I had my FSB clocked at 400, so I tried dropping in some slower RAM, which fixed the problem. Then I tried putting the new RAM back in, but setting the FSB at 333, this also seems to fix the problem. So there's something in the combination of a 400mhz FSB and 400mhz RAM that the motherboard doesn't like. So my only problem now is that my computer has to be underclocked until I can get a new motherboard which will handle everything (A7N8X-E Deluxe). I think I saw one at Fry's for ~100 bucks... Thanks again for your help!