Ok here is an update. I got some heavy duty cable and tapped a line in directly from the power lines near my apartment to my Radeon 9800, giving it all the watts it needs. In the end however, I think it was just dropping it down to x4 AGP that fixed the problem!

Thanks tho!

Will get it exchanged for a new one and if that doesn't work, I'm going back to nvidia...
You people keep telling others that it's the PSU, answer me this: why the heck does it crash/lockup when all I'm doing is watch movie? Is that so graphic intensive?

How long is this gonna get?? COme on guys does the Radeon series have THIS many problems?

Yes they do, Calculus Master.
I returned this p.o.c. for a refund. Will get an nvidia card. I'm a Canadian and I wanted to support a Canadian company but ati's tech support is downright horse manure.

for your information the antec 550 is what i orgionally tried and it didn't work because it doesn't put out like it says.. your once again reading only the 550watt label.. not the other power specs on the label. And running the card at 4x reduces its peformance by about half. The card isn't crap it just needs to have what it wants. If you all aren't gonna ever listen to me on here and i've left numerous posts everytime being the same thing then stop whinning. Its the psu... its the ram cas settings.. and its the voltage settings in the bios.... it isn't the fastwrite.. it isn't the agp aperture.. and it might be the agp read/write setting using the smartgart utility in windows. But if non of you are willing to try these and lsiten.. then stop whinning cuz from the first thread posted on this thing.. all you guys are on repeat... why don't you try the recommendations for once.. we allready know what it does.. so stop telling us the same problem over and over and over... or i'll get this thread locked down for it going no where.

man i dont even have problems like u peeps do. It happens to every company sometimes u do get a bad board, sometimes the powersupply isnt up to par.

UPDATE

Just got a BFG GeForce 6800 GT in the mail last week and all my problems have been solved. I've put my system through a beating this weekend burning it in and NO problems even with AGP back at x8 in BIOS.

At this point I dont want to trash ATI but the problem had something to do with their card and possibly the chipset. I'm going to be rebuilding my wife's PC and will pass the 9800 Pro on to her new rig to see if she has any of the same problems, hopefully not.

Shame because the 9800Pro is a kick ass video card, but I must say I'm thrilled with the 6800 GT - totally awesome video card and worth every penny.

PS - James Miller; your advice (even though you meant well) was complete crap. You would have had me running out and spending $200 on a power supply that wouldn't have done sh*t for me except waste my money. How about opening your eyes for a change and actually analyzing the symptoms without giving people blind "advice".
I hope this post helps other people who are experiencing the same problem. There might be some kind of general compatability problem with the VIA AGP drivers and the 9800 or even the KT800 Pro chipset.

Via Hasnt been doing too hot for the AMD based Chipsets. but for me switching to a 6800 GT would be a waste of money for me cause im only limited by the fact i havent overclocked yet, and not to mention im going with the gen after this set. Btw the best Board ATI has out that is the Top End but not "Limited Edition" is the ATI All In Wonder Radeon X800XT, you people should get a pic of the board and probably consider that as something to consider buying.

Same probs with me too...

I actualy bought the card along with my whole computer. I had some disturbance when starting it up for the first time! heres the prob now...

When I installed the graphics card into the computer, there was a lot of disturbance on the monitor. After a while of moving and fixing in the card better it was okay. However, when i run the game Doom III, it crashes with a load of disturbance... (I have to switch the computer off to get it working again). It appears that there is a problem with the graphics cards socket, when moved, i get alot of disturbance on the monitor. There is a small possibility it could be the case, motherboard or printer, but thats very unlikely.

It looks like im gonna have to dump radion and get a GF or something?

To avoid reading 20 pages of messages like these, could someone please tell me what I need to do, it would be a huge help!

Thanks a lot!

this thread doesn't fix factory problems.... its about the restarting issue.. has nothing to do with a faulty mount or connector.. do this.. rma the damn card and send it back.. thats what you do.

To ~Joe Chedburn

If you are getting interference it sounds more like a hardware problem with the video card to me. I know that sometimes if I have my cellphone close to my monitor and it rings I get the same kind of distortion and if that is what you are getting it sounds like a faulty card. If possible, test this video card in a friend's computer and see if it does the same thing. If not it could be a problem with the motherboard. Computer troubleshooting is always about testing one component at a time to find the culprit.

Something else I want to point out is that I'm not saying to run out and buy a GeForce card I'm simply saying that in the course of upgrading my wife's computer I decided to get the new card based on suspicions that this had something to do with Radeon 9800's. I think the 9800 Pro/XT is a great video card, but if you have a similar setup to me and are having the same issues you can either try dropping the AGP down to x4 in the BIOS or try another video card.

tons of asus motherboards have been known to have problems, MSI, Abit, Gigabyte, DFI dont seem to have problems, but i got lucky as i managed to get my vid card to work with the low class P4S8X, without degrading performance.

Cheers guys...

Lucky I have a Gigabite then

Yeah, I believe it is an overheating problem...

Ive set the ( performance <---> quality ) all the way down to performance, im gonna give it a blast now! Then i will try the 4x in bios.

thanks

Nope, nothings changed... I believe a connection is comming lose when the graphics card heats up (expands)...

I've ordered a new one, I will tell you if that helps or not

Guys, look how old this topic is. LOL

Nov 14, 2003, 03:50 PM is when Al Capone first posted. LOL its still going. ;););););););););)

oh heres something else u may wanna consider, about 97% of the motherboards are still using the CPU as its APU, meaning if the CPU starts getting hotter the sound may start cutting in/out, or repeating a certain beat within games, easiest suggestion is to get a PCI Sound card to fix such problems, oh there is hope for the ATI boards btw, u should check this site out, its very jumbled but it will help out for most of you people, as for those who buy Prebuilt systems, refer to them for majority of help.

Heres that ATI site
http://www.ardvens.org/Radeon/Help.html

Firstly I have read through this post, another one on 9600 and lots more on other websites. Funny how there is always a bunch of nerd fanboys who just can't resist but to turn a thread asking for help and trying to diagnose and solve a problem into a Rant/rave that thier solution is the only answer or ATI is better/Worse than Nvidia.

All i can say is grow up.... If you have no advice to offer, like your parents probably told ya, keep your comments to yourself.

Anyways I started having this same type of problem just recently. I HAVE BEEN RUNNING THIS SYSTEM FOR ABOUT 1 YEAR WITHOUT A SINGLE PROBLEM WHATSOEVER(barring driver/software updates) and the last update I did was XP SP2 about a month or so ago, so Software/Hardware is definately not the issue.

Specs:
ASUS A7N8X (UAY) Motherboard r1004 >Updated BIOS to 1007 (onboard sound disabled)
Antec 350w Smart Blue PSU (included with Lanboy Case)
AMD Athalon XP2500+ (Barton) never overclocked 1.87Ghz + FSB @ 166 DDR =333MHz
3 x 512MB of MICRON PC3200 DDR400 RAM (set to by SPD = 200Mhz)
Sapphire Radeon 9800xt 256MB, 8x, fastwrites, AGP 3.0
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (with the i/o drive)
1 MAXTOR 80GB 7200 Rpm HDD
USB Intellimouse explorer
Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard
AOC 21" CRT GL9R Monitor
Windows XP Pro SP2, DX9.0c
.... needless to say all software, BIOS and Drivers are up to date.

I have ran this system for a little over a year without a single problem. then suddenly last week I experienced the while playing StarWars Galaxies and running Teamspeak, complete computer lockup/black screen on monitor/sound looping/USB Mouse losses power. only course of action was to press the reset on the case. after that it started happening even while just browseing the Internet, or just randomly while my computer was sitting IDLE.

Before searching the Net, I tried everything..... and I mean everything.

#1 I make sure everything in the box is 100% clean and dust free, doing this I immeadiately noticed I could play longer without the lockup making me think this had something to do with static charge buildup. I actually went almost 24 hours uptime before it happened again. then it started happening again more frequently, until it's now expected lock up within 20 min of uptime no matter what I am doing on the PC.

#1b Checked for Virus, enabled Boot Virus Dectection in BIOS... all clean no prblems there.

#1c Checked all relevant software/drivers for corruption and also reinstalled/uninstalled/fdisk and windows reinstall and nothing is working. tried all versions of Catalyst/Omega drivers still no help. same with Soundcard software/drivers.

#2 moved around the Soundcard trying it in all PCI slots, as there is a large number of people posting about thier audigy causing the problem, again with no proof or no solution because with this lock up there is no error reporting/logging being done by windows. checked IRQ steering... all is good no conflicts/sharing in BIOS or in windows. So i removed the sound card and all software/drivers, booted into safe mode and used DriverHeavens Driver cleaner/Cab cleaner and made sure Creative was 100% removed from my system. I then installled the onboard sound drivers using the Forceware package off the MoBo disk which I know to be stable because I've been using them for over a year, and enabled it in the BIOS and quickly realized it was not the sound card because it took 5 attempts to get through this installation because of the same lock up issue. finally got the onboard sound going, still having same issue.

#3 Narrowed it down to be Definately a hardware Issue with one of these things.... Motherboard / Powersupply / Videocard / memory / Harddrive

#3b Checked Memory and Hard drive, took them into Memory express (the store in Calgary I buy all my Hardware from) and had the system builder Guru's run thier tests and everything checked out as fine.

#3c Narrowed down to the last 3 things MoBo/PSU/VGA card.

Disgruntled I just said Screw it and put everything back together and took the whole box into Memory express. They can find the problem as I don't even care whats wrong, just want it fixed so I can get back to my gaming.

Chances are from reading 100's of posts on this same type of issue is my PSU is either getting burnt out and no longer supplying enough power or the mother board has gotten a static charge damage and isn't funcioning properly anymore.I highly doubt that after 4 months of flawless performance my Radeon is the cause, but hey, as soon as the Tech guys test it out and I get my PC back I'll be sure to let you all know the cause.

Dwayne~

Yes, your problem is different than mine I will give you that. I had problems from the moment I put my system together.

If your system has been working FLAWLESSLY for as long as you say, and you suspect a hardware problem, your best bet is to start swapping out potential problem points until you find what is causing your problem. I understand that this isn't always easy since you might not have spare RAM laying around but if you can get ahold of some to borrow for testing or if your PC repair shop can do this you might be able to narrow it down.

The honest truth is that when troubleshooting an intermittent / "wierd" hardware issue the last resort comes down to testing each component. You also might want to try reinstalling WindowsXP.

Final question for you - when your system locks up does it eventually reboot if you let it sit long enough?

nope.... it is a complete lock up, I let it sit for an hour one time just to see, and it never "comes back." I just found it strange that after running fine for so long, I suddenly start having this problem that it seems alot of other people are having from day one. The one thing I have noticed from reading alot of forum posts is everyone seems to have an Antec power supply, an Audigy sound card, and a high end video card either from ATI or Nvidia.

one other thing i am also finding strange is the fact that when the lockup occurs, my USB mouse losses Power (the LED goes out) so this is pointing towards a USB/Power issue.

also forgot to add originally, I have had this system running 24/7 and the only time i restart is to update drivers or BIOS or install software, other than that I never restart.

Also I built my system myself, and forgot to add I have added 2 case/chassis fans. when I bought the A7N8X MoBo and the xp2500 processor, I had the Techs install the Processor and update the BIOS before I even left the store, so essentially all i did was take it home, put it together, format the HDD and install all my crap, update and started playing games, listening to music, watching movies...... DOH another thing I forgot to add I also have 2 CD/DVD drives, from LG. One is a DVD 16x read/32x24x48 CDRW and the other is a DVDRAM 4x.

I really wish I had read the or searched the net before giving my box in for Tech testing, maybe upping the voltages in the Bios might have helped, or disableing the smartGart, who knows? all I know for certain is, the Lockup issue sounds very simular to what others are experienceing and the system Like I said has been running flawlessly for just over a year (I checked reciepts). I usually play 6-8 hours a day on StarwarsGalaxies, with Teamspeak also running and after playing, check email, do my buisness bookwork with Office XP, then use diskeeper pro to defrag, and walk away leaving the system up and running until I come back after sleep and work. Other games I have installed and also play regularly include Battlefield 1942/vietnam, IL2 Stormovik forgotten battles, AD&D Temple of Elemental Evil, Starwars Battlefront, TombRadier, Max paine, Worms Blast, Halflife and all Mods including Counter strike, the new counterstrike Source, I also use my PC for backing up and watching DVD's, I also have a fujifilm camera that I USB the pictures onto my PC, basically I have used my PC for everything and have never had any issues until about 5 days ago when this Lockup started.

Now I know my problem may be entirely different, but the fact remains, the lockup is the same type all or most of you are describing and the hardware seems to be along the same lines also, so IMO it's just to much of a coincidence that we all have this problem.

Anyways like I said, I will post back my results after the Techs find out what they can, and hopefully we can find some correlation as to the root of this problem that my be benificial to some.

why not... i'll say it again.... or try to explain it... a psu can wear.. sometimes fast sometimes slow. The ones at my old school i talked to one of the tecs the other said that he's had almost 10 computers over the last year have psu problems where they have had to put new ones in. Quite simeply you said that when your computer did this and the screen went blank and your computer made a noise and the mouse died.. thats because your psu failed.

The theory that i used to prove this was the before i solved it to be a psu problem i tried another psu and tied it directly to my video card.. so it had its own powersource on boot.. my computer didn't crash after that.. but then later on that psu went to hell..

See it was the psu out of my familys computer so naturally... i went through everything to get it fixed.. i bought a new motherboard for that computer and when i plugged in the psu before i knew it was burned.. the damn computer started chirping out of the speakers.. the keyboard barely lit up.. and to my god damn amazment.. windows crashed and failed to boot.

needless to say though when that computer went out it took the board, processor and powersupply with it.

Anyways...

so i bought a hopped up psu from mwav.com the A+gbpu 550 watt.. it boasts a more practicle power output then most antec or thermaltake or all those.. so i tried it and my compuuter hasn't crash but once .. i won't say it hasn't again.. just once did it... but it was a massive overcranking of graphics.. other then that my computer hasn't crashed anymore.. i mean it was a day to day restart.. there was no missing anote..
but now there is nothing.

I garentee the techs won't find anything out because when i discussed it with Tyan's electrical techs they were most interested that i got that video card to work on there board by getting a higher power psu.. they were like we can't figure out how we missed this. And i guess it works now..

But like i've said and prolly will always have to say.. unless you spend the money.. stop telling us the problem.