Question about 9800pro

[Nab]

Okay, I just installed my 9800pro into my Asus P4s533 mobo, 2.4ghz P4, 1 gig ram, Windows 2000 pro computer. I installed the ATI 5.7 drivers, and everything works great, I can run most present games (GW, Lineage 2, etc) on the highest settings, and FEAR demo at mid settings. But whats been going is my comp will randomly restart for no reason, and everytime I play WoW, after I choose my character and the bar goes across the screen, my comp locks and i get a solid bright blue screen of death. Any suggestions on what this might be?

Should I upgrade to Win XP pro? Is my card incompatible with the mobo? Or is the card just getting too hot?

thank you.

-nab

 

[BlueWeasel]

How big is your PSU? Have you tried using a different set of drivers?

 

[Nab]

What kind of Drivers should I use? I dont really know much about Video card drivers. And i have a 300 watt Antec PSU. I may need to upgrade that.

EDIT - I have tried Omega Drivers, but I didnt have them long enough to notice any random restarts since I wanted WoW to work (it wouldn't work with the omega drivers). and usually when WoW doesnt work, it's a driver problem.

But maybe a PSU or OS problem?

 

[NYHoustonman]

Definetly sounds like it could be the power supply, I believe they recommend 350 watts for the 9800 pro. I've been able to get by with a 330 Watt Truepower, though.

 

[Nab]

really? okay then, an Antec is gonna be the best choice right? 350-450 watt should work?

 

[Saga]

FYI, from personal experience my ASUS mobo and 9800 Pro card do NOT like eachother. My A7V880 machine is setup simply for file sharing, but has on occasion acted as a backup gaming rig for LAN's and whatnot. It constantly crashed and rebooted the machine when playing practically any 3D game. The only recent game I have had no issues with (surprisingly) was BF2. WoW will not play for more than ten minutes without bluescreening or straight restarting.

Important note, is your 9800 Pro the 128MB version of the 256MB version? Not 256 bit, I mean the actual physical RAM. I have two 9800 Pro's, both are 256 bit memory architecture however the 128 one does not get along with the ASUS board where the 256 card does. Let me know what yours is and I can possibly offer some suggestions to resolve.

 

[Nab]

i have the 128MB version...

 

[Nab]

bump

 

[mindgam3]

I had the exact same problem it turned out to be a problem with my ram ... Ram and psu will be the first to things to eliminate. If you have 2 sticks of ram try just one at a time and see what happens.

 

[imported_Doughboy]

I've not had the same MoBo as you, but I've never had 9800 Pro 128MB problems with either of my ASUS 2 rigs (See sig, 9800 has been in both rigs at some point)

 

[Nab]

should i run a Memory Test to see if something's wrong with my memory? I'm also thinking about getting a 450 watt power supply, because as stated above, the 9800pro needs at least a 350 watt psu and mine's 300w

-nab

 

[Saga]

Well, it lists 350w simply because actual power output from various brands of power supplies can vary quite a bit. A very powerful 350w can easily fulfil 450w required specs. What type of PSU and what brand and model of RAM are you using?

 

[Saga]

I ran a 256MB 9800 Pro just fine on a beefy 250w, in all reality I don't think PSU will be your problem.

 

[Nab]

i just checked my comp, and it turns out i DO have a 350w psu

I have...

- Antec 350w psu
- 1x512 Kingston pc2700
- 1x512 Value Brand pc2700 (value brand meaning, sale items at CompUSA, like PNY, etc.)

I'm going to run Memtest 86+ tonight and see if there's something wrong with the memory

 

[Nab]

bump

 

[mwmorph]

9700 dosent use much power at all. it's mostly drawn form the 5V and 3.3V rails. not 12V. 12V is olny .7a or so.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-powercons_8.html

 

[kmmatney]

I had ASUS Nforce1 motherboard (with great on-board sound!) before I got my 6600GT. For whatever reason my 6600GT would simply not run stable with that motherbaord. In the end, I had to swap out my nice ASUS board with my son's crappy Biostar board to get things working. Bummer. Things work great now, though, but I'm now stuck with crappy sound.

 

[Nab]

darn you asus.....so asus hates 9800pro......ill live with instability....

 

[NYHoustonman]

It may not be an NForce chipset, but I've been running my 9800 Pro on an Asus A7V333 since I first got it and it's been, no exaggeration, the most stable machine I've ever owned. With a 350 Watt Antec PSU, though, I would think you'd be ok.

 

[Nab]

okay....so if its not the mobo, not the vid card, not the psu, and not the OS........im gonna run memtest 86+ (or any other good RAM tester that you guys suggest) to see if i have any faulty memoy.....but as of right now...my computer hasnt restarted for almost a day...so my hopes are beginning to go back up about the stability of this machine...

-nab