Video Card or Mobo problem?

[Telinar]

Ever since I upgraded my 9800 pro, I've had problems with games. Before, with my old nvidia geforce, I would never freeze, the problems all started when I got the 9800 pro. Whenever I play a 3d game, it would randomly freeze after a certain amount of time. At first, it would usually freeze very quickly maybe in about 5 mins, but after I bought a 400w enermax, the freezes would come less often, maybe every hour or so.

However, recently, I have been unable to play reliably again. When I start up a 3d game, it would freeze quickly in about 5 minutes and I would have to hard boot my machine. I've tried many things, such as keeping the case open, and using a fan on it, but that didn't work. Anyway, I finally discovered that if I underclocked both the core and memory on my radeon 9800 pro with ati tool by about 20%, I would be able to play more reliably again. Anyway, I'm a little tired of this situation, so I'm thinking about getting a few replacements, however I don't know what piece of hardware is at fault. Is it my motherboard or my graphics card? I'm wondering if it might be the mobo because some people say there are issues with via chipsets and ati graphics cards. Thanks

Here are my specs:

ECS K7VTA3 mobo, 2 512mb Kingston pc2700ram, Athlon XP 2500+ Barton, ATI Radeon 9800 pro, Enermax 400w psu.

 

[Navid]

Monitor the 12V rail that goes to the CPU while running prime95 for 10 minutes. You can monitor the voltage on an unused Molex connector. Make sure the voltage does not drop too much.

If the PSU is OK, run memtest overnight. If there are no errors the next day, the RAM is OK. If there are any errors, you need to relax timing or reduce overclock or increase VDIMM.

If the PSU and RAM are stable, run prim95 overnight. If it is still running the next day, the CPU is OK. If not, you need to improve CPU cooling or reduce CPU overclock or increase VCore.

If the RAM and CPU are stable, monitor the 12V rail that goes to the graphics card while running ATItool and scanning for artifacts. make sure that the voltage does not drop too much.

If the PSU and the RAM and the CPU are all stable and you still have crashes, you either have a faulty graphics card or you need to improve the cooling of it.

 

[nanaki333]

when you installed your new video card, did you completely remove ALL drivers of your old nvidia card? your old ones may still be there fvcking with your new card.