Sorry for some reason, my message didn't show. Well I got my 9800XT to work with my system after many hours. I went into the Radeon adjustments and changed it from 8x to 4x and now it runs Everquest and everthing else I have tried flawlessly. I am sure it is slowing my system down but at least it works now. My mobo had no adjustment for AGP slot at all, it is a Giga-byte GA-8IPE1000-G. I requested a reply from ATI last week but as of today all I have recieved is the initial email stating it was given to someone to look into.

uh Codename, Get your Facts Straight, about the degrading of the 9800 XT, the 9800 XT is not an overclocked 9800 pro but a different core altogether, its the R360 vs the R350, plus different ram is used on the 9800 XT over the 9800 pro, Nvidia GF FX 5950 is just an overclocked 5900 Ultra, thats all it is,

Well, I thought I had it all figured out. Bahh. I played Everquest last night and after about 20 minutes it just rebooted and came up with a "Serious error" which was caused by a "device driver". I am so frustrated, I have nothing in the PC now except a video card and hard drive. I disconnected and removed the DVD-R and the floppy disk and it only took 10 minutes for it to reboot. I checked the temperature and it was 28 C. I am surely lost again. I am taking the 9800XT out and replacing with my Nvidia 5700 Ultra, never had a problem with it.

Zero problem with Call of Duty. But Warhammer 40K is still a bit unstable, but it might be the game this time since lots of people are reporting crash problems on that game's forum (nvdia users included).
Ken, did you try older versions of cat drivers?
I'm hearing some good things about 4.2. Will try that tonight.
Seriously, if I had read this thread before I got the 9800 pro, I would've never bought it.
Potential buyers beware!

this post is way too long

this post is way too long

Found another problem.
It even locks up (random) when I'm watching movies with windows media player. So there's definitely something wrong with directx and this freakin' card. The whole reason I bought ati was because it is supposed to perform better with directx than nvidia!!

Struggling with same issues. I built a new rig about 2 months ago:

Asus A8V
Athlon 3500+
Radeon 9800 pro
Soundblaster Audigy2
Mushkin pc3200 222 special

Had some initial problems getting the system stable to start with - would not boot unless I maxxed BIOS vdimm setting to 2.8.

Problem I have is that in certain games, the system locks up - I get some stuttering sound or beeps/pops, display goes black and then system reboots eventually if I let it sit there.
Odd thing is I never had this happen when playing Doom3. Happens mostly when I play Battlefield 1942 and Everquest. Lockups in Everquest mainly happen if I minimize the client to look something up with IE and click on a link or something.

I will try messing with Smartgart utility to see if this helps at all.

You last few guys that have been posting NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS. Its your power supply. I want you to try something. Get a volt meter and tie it into either the system 12 volt plug or one of the molex connectors testing either the 3.3 5.5 or 12 volt... then start up a graphicly intense game and watch the power drop. As the graphics card also gets hotter it uses more power. Along with your processor and ram. YOur psu is bottoming out and simply going oh s**t and restarts as a default protection mode. I have contacted so many companies now its not even funny and talked to the their electronics techs. Its the powersupply plain and simple. Although in some cases it is the limitation of the motherboard to accept a load that high.

So I want you guys to look into getting a more expensive and beefier power supply.. One in the 80-150 dollar range.

The psu must have a wattage rating of at least 450-550 for that 9800xt. a 12 volt leg of 18-30 amps... a 5.5v leg of 40-60 amps.. and a 3.3 volt leg of around 30-35 amps...

Anything less then this is not sufficient. I put forth some extra effort recently to try a few new psu's in a computer store in the area after i told them what i was trying to accomplish.

You guys NEED to look into this.

THe power supply i bought that finally fixed my computer.. (and i even added up to 11 molex connectors that are all in use) thats around 6 more then normal... i can run any game i want and any program i want for as long as a i want. Its an (A+GBP) 550watt PSU... you can find it at jge-gbp.com i think or something like that im sure you can find it if you loook it up.. i bought it on mwave.com for 110 bucks.. it was worth it. And its not one of these ultra silent but lacking in serious power enemermax's or coolermax or therlmatake peice of crap powersupplys.. there all the same each one tested the same as the other and they bottomed.. anyways put out the cash and try it.

If it doesn't work. Send it back. and looking into getting a newer board. preferebly a gigabyte, or MSI mobo. ASUS and Abit seem to be having alot of trouble with this card. So anyways that sums it up. THeres your answer.. Now go fix it.
______________
Tyan s2462 MOBo
Dual Athlon MP 2400's
2024MB of Kingston 2100 DDR
300Gb Maxtor 9 Harddrive's
radeon 9800 xt 256mb
Liteon 52x CD-RW
Liteon 16x Dual-Layer DVDRW
Liteon 16x DVDR
Rocketraid ATA133 DUAL PORT Card
BELKIN 5 Port USB Card
2 120mm Case Fans
6 80mm Case Fans

3dmark03 Score (5980)

having Generic No Name PSUs is what kills a computer, having an Antec, Thermaltake, Enermax, Powmax PSU is what keeps system running reliable, L&C is one of the better "lowend PSUs", they usually ship with Cases from frozencpu.com or xoxide.com

I am using the power supply that comes with the Antec Sonata case - it's 380W. I am not adverse to purchasing a beefier power supply, but when I can play Doom3 for hours without a problem (an extremely graphically intense game) I don't understand why another game then gives me problems. It almost seems like this is some sort of driver or video card glitch that only manifests itself in certain circumstances.

Anyhow, if it comes down to that I could pick one up but I'm sure some people here can empathize - it's a significant chunk of cash that I would rather set aside for future upgrades.

Gee an lousy 100 bucks for a psu that might actually make your computer run normal for a change...... naw.. thats too much to ask.. idiots.

Spend them money.. you have a nice system and great perfomance why lose out on it. Like i said i've done more then research it and thats what it is. And i could play some games and not others too.. Just like the other 15 pages worth of people on 5 different topics.

And antec, enermax, and thermaltake are all the same psu's.. there crap.. i had them before my A+GBP and they didn't touch it. And for the money you get more connectors with a GBP anyways. But theres many psu's that offer higher power.

You guys just need to stop and listen and realize this has all been researched and tried before. THis is the cause and the fix. Spend them money like i said.. if it doesn't fix it take it back. Most companies have a 30 day return policy. Just say it wouldn't fix your computer. Or made it worse.. SImple as that.. but i garentee you if you buy a 450-550 watt psu with those specs.. you wno't be sorry...

AND a 350 psu is NOT big enough for a radeon 9800xt. Maybe with a system that doesn't support 8x or doesn't have alot of harddrives or mods on it. BUt anything under 450 isn't sufficient anymore. So don't say crap like that. YOu have no idea. And to clarify that point i had a 480watt psu that i bought for my computer and it wasn't sufficient for the radeon 9800xt to work under load. I proved it with a multimeter and some other test equipment. The proof is there. Just stpend the damn money. Or stop complaining and get off the forum.

Gee, thanks for the wonderful condescending reply.

First off, your analysis of power supplies is complete bullsh*t. I'm not even running a 9800XT if you even read my post.
I have been building PCs for years now and while I completely understand the need for buying a quality power supply and supplying enough power to my devices, but saying you need a 500W+ power supply is totally bogus.

Yes, I have a nice system and I spent quite a bit of money on it, but that doesn't mean I am going to run out and spend hundreds more on a whim. I might end up buying a new supply if all my other attempts at a fix run into a dead end but I would rather do the research first.

Look around and I think you will see that people are running beefy systems with 350W power supplies and NOT having these kinds of problems. I am noticing a lot of people posting issues with the Asus A8V board and the common thread seems to be ATI video cards.

Thanks anyhow for your response and the replies of everyone else.

anyone wanna bet me? and then i will gladly give you my paypal email when i win...

I'd bet you, except I'm on your side.

God, people never want to spend anything on something that won't make their pc go faster or glow some new brighter hue of neon green.

It's always for the cpu, or memory, or video card.
Sometimes for the hard drives, once in a while for the optical drives.
Always for the cooling and the case and the pretty blinky lights.

So many people skimp on the psu, or other things like floppy drives, cd-r media, etc.

You get what you pay for. The PSU is the MOST IMPORTANT PART of your system.
Your computer is one big complicated circuit. It needs power, and it needs it now, and it needs it consistently.

I don't care if you have a 600 W PSU, if the voltage ratings are low, it's crap.
There are so many crap PSUs out there, and people buy them because they're cheap, and they don't look at anything but teh WatZ omFg!

PLEASE, check your 12v, check your 3.3v. These two are the most common system killers.
High watts + low price = probably crap.
Always check the ratings on the side of the psu.
Hell, check online to see what people say. That way you don't have to buy it and return it if it fails to deliver consistent power.

I don't think your getting my point. I don't condone buying a piece of s**t power supply. I did my homework when I put my system together; I read reviews on the Antec Sonata case and NO ONE on ANY review site had anything bad to say about the power supply it comes with. I also think its a little bit silly to say that Antec makes s**tty power supplies.

Point number two: SOME games such as Doom3 have never given me any problems. I played through Doom3 in a couple days and I never experienced a single reboot or lockup. I also have never experienced any problems when running Prime95 which maxxes your CPU, or when running graphic benchmarks such as 3dmark 2003. I then went back and played some Battlefield 1942 and had 2 lockups in one night. It seems to be very game specific. That is why I have a hard time thinking it is power supply related, and that is why its lower on my list of things to troubleshoot.

On some advice from another thread I have tried setting the AGP setting in BIOS to x4 and will see if that helps. If that fails to fix the problem I'll probably pick up a new power supply and try that next.

Thanks again for the feedback.

-Joe

drivers?

Ati does not verify this as a driver problem as the problem exist in drives 3.4 and up. The only probably is that only applies to the 9800 pro.. not the 9800xt or xt 256...

Now i want to point out again as i've already been saying it. You turn off the 8x to 4x.. yes.. well my freind mine was on 4x to being with cuz thats all my board supports.. but then i have 2 processors to make up for the power shift..

Anyways when you drop that 8x to 4x you cut the power consumtion in half. So your psu doesn't cause a restart.

And for the games thing. Different games apply different antialiasing in game. Some 1. some 2 some even 3x antialiasing.. rarely anything higher simply because theres not many cards that could push that intensly. But the fact reamins thats some games play the settings differently.. where as one plays with lower grpahics settings not using as much power and another game that using hard core graphics power.. and thus causes the card to suck alot more power and get hot and oh wait.. REBOOT.....

And for the guy that questioned me saying antec was crap.... i'll place money on that you didn't even honestly think to take into account the power ratings on that sticker on the side of the psu when you bought it. Because 9 of 10 stores.. didn't even know a problem like that could exist..

So maybe i do know what im talking about. U think i come on this forum for my health. No because people need help sometimes.. That is what everyone asks for on here.. Well im giving it. Why don't you take it for once.

Listen, I don't know as much as the rest of you about comps but I do know this. I have a 9800XT with the same fatal loop errors as everyone else and I'm running an Antec 550W. I just returned the card and went NVidia... Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Clearly the 32-bit part of Joe's 9800 is broken. Boot Windows in DOS mode and all your problems will be solved.