ATI Radeon 9250 - what power supply required?

[Barry Derbyshire]

I have a 300w power supply. Some say you need at least
350w. Once installed Windows 98 becomes very unstable and 90% of games don't
work. I have tried
drivers from the makers of the card but have not
tried updated drivers from ATI. Generally people tell
me to change to Windows XP. Any suggestions would be
welcome.

 

[First of One]

I used to run a Geforce 3 (which is comparable to a 9250 in power
consumption) and AthlonXP with a no-name 250 W power supply. Your 300 W unit
should be enough, though it of course depends on the other components in
your system.

Update the ATi drivers. As well, install / update the motherboard chipset
drivers. Remember, driver updates are free.

 

[farmuse]

I used to run a Geforce 3 (which is comparable to a 9250 in power
consumption) and AthlonXP with a no-name 250 W power supply. Your 300 W unit
should be enough, though it of course depends on the other components in
your system.

Update the ATi drivers. As well, install / update the motherboard chipset
drivers. Remember, driver updates are free.

I was running a 9500 soft modded to 9700, XP 1400, 512, one 120 gb
7200 drive and a cd rom off of what I thought was a 250 w Deer power
supply, actual output 140w with 9 amps on the 12 v line. It ran hot,
smelled hot the first day but was rock solid stable. I am sure the 300w,
if it really is 300 can run a 9250 just fine, depends on what else you
run too.

 

[Sleepy]

I have a 300w power supply. Some say you need at least
350w. Once installed Windows 98 becomes very unstable and 90% of games
don't
work. I have tried
drivers from the makers of the card but have not
tried updated drivers from ATI. Generally people tell
me to change to Windows XP. Any suggestions would be
welcome.

what is the rest of your system ? CPU, MOTHERBOARD, RAM, HDD? CDROM? Does
your Monitor draw power from the PSU or directly from the wall socket?
Windows 98 is perfectly stable if setup properly.
that 300w PSU could be fine but without knowing the rest of the system its
hard to give any real answer.

 

[Barry]

Thanks for your input Sleepy.
My system - 2.4Gb P4 - 756 DDR Ram -
GA-8SIMLH-P m/board with SiS 651 chipset- 40gig HD.
I have re-installed my old Geforce 4 card and all games work and
Windows 98 is stable. I've been told that no suitable drivers exist for
Win98. It"s now been suggested that I update my M/boards
chipset drivers.
My monitor draws power from the wall socket.
Please help before I chuck the card in the rubbish bin.

 

[Sleepy]

Thanks for your input Sleepy.
My system - 2.4Gb P4 - 756 DDR Ram -
GA-8SIMLH-P m/board with SiS 651 chipset- 40gig HD.
I have re-installed my old Geforce 4 card and all games work and
Windows 98 is stable. I've been told that no suitable drivers exist for
Win98. It"s now been suggested that I update my M/boards
chipset drivers.
My monitor draws power from the wall socket.
Please help before I chuck the card in the rubbish bin.

Sorry it took me a while to check back on this. 300w should be okay for your
system provided the PSU is healthy. Thats good advice to update the
motherboard drivers as they usually include an AGP port driver and that
obviously affects not just stability but also performance of the graphics
card.
http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/Driver/Driver_GA-8SIMLH-P (Rev 4.0).htm
download all of em while your at it, IDE, Sound and AGP (Win98 is covered)
and install. Check your Bios setting after you've done that set AGP aperture
to its default 64 or 128mb and fast-writes OFF (or that'll cause
instability) and AGP to 4x - 8x AGP can be unstable on SIS chipset boards.
Also you need to uninstall the old drivers before putting in the new card -
very important. Sometimes using a program like Drivercleaner makes sure this
is done thoroughly.
http://www.drivercleaner.net/
Frankly that Radeon 9250 isnt much faster than the Geforce 4 it replaced -
Im guessing the old card was an MX and you wanted a card that supported
DirectX shaders for newer games? If it was a Geforce 4ti you really shouldnt
have bothered.
Hope this helps