Finally got the 9800, but now have some issues...

[sb]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me info/advice when I
posted about wanting to finally switching from nVida to ATI, as well as the
people who responded to my post about buying the 9800 and got a TNT2 m64
inside! Anyway, it looks like maybe the opposite has happened now? I was
able to get the ATI Radeon 9800 at Circuit City and they gave it to me for
the BB sale price of $239. When I installed it and checked out the advanced
settings, it says...
Adapter Type: RADEON 9800 PRO
Chip Type: RADEON 9800 AGP (0x4E48)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Memory Size: 128 MB
Adapter String: RADEON 9800 PRO
Bios Information: BK-ATI VER008.004.008.18

Is this a PRO card? Sure looks like it, but I definitely bought the non-pro
9800 (at least according to the box).

Also, I've noticed two issues so far...first issue is that I played Halo and
there is big performance loss compared to the Geforce 3 that I just switched
out. All I did was uninstall my Detonator 51.75 drivers, shut down the pc
and put in the 9800 and installed the latest catalyst drivers that I
downloaded (3.7, I believe?). I have anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering
set to the lowest setting. I didn't really mess with the driver settings
after installing them. Anyone know how a Geforce 3 would be outperforming
the 9800 in Halo? Are there any guides to what you should set the ATI
drivers to? I've been used to the Detonators for like the last 4 yrs or so.

Second issue, while I was playing Halo, the system shut down HARD. I had to
unplug the motherboard power connector and reconnect it to get it to even
come back on. Box says I should have a 300 watt PSU and I do. Here's
currently what I have in the system...

Antec 300 PSU
Epox 8KHA+ MB
Athlon XP 1.4
512MB PC2100 ram
2 Maxtor 40 gig ATA133 HDs
Sony 32X burner
LiteOn 16x DVD drive
SB Audigy sound card (have the audigy drive but it is not plugged in)
PCI ethernet card

Hey, thanks again for all the help/info/advice. You guys are awesome!

 

[Thomas]

Also, I've noticed two issues so far...first issue is that I played
Halo and there is big performance loss compared to the Geforce 3 that
I just switched out. All I did was uninstall my Detonator 51.75
drivers, shut down the pc and put in the 9800 and installed the
latest catalyst drivers that I downloaded (3.7, I believe?). I have

I think the problem lies in the NVidia drivers... try a util like 'detonator
destroyer' to really get rid of all the shit the NVidia driver has left
behind.. After reinstalling the Ati driver, it would be wise to reinstall
DirectX 9.

You could try a benchmark with 3DMark to see if your performance is up to
par...

Good luck, and enjoy your card...

Thomas

 

[JAD]

since I backup off HD, whenever I install a major new component I do a complete re/repair(XP) install of the OS..bout 30 minutes and
it makes life a whole lot easier. One stupid dll or wdm can jack the whole proccess.

 

[Replicant]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me info/advice when I
posted about wanting to finally switching from nVida to ATI, as well as the
people who responded to my post about buying the 9800 and got a TNT2 m64
inside! Anyway, it looks like maybe the opposite has happened now? I was
able to get the ATI Radeon 9800 at Circuit City and they gave it to me for
the BB sale price of $239. When I installed it and checked out the advanced
settings, it says...
Adapter Type: RADEON 9800 PRO
Chip Type: RADEON 9800 AGP (0x4E48)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Memory Size: 128 MB
Adapter String: RADEON 9800 PRO
Bios Information: BK-ATI VER008.004.008.18

See what the memory and core are running at to know for sure.

 

[Rev Marc]

I bought the same board (9800) but PC says its the Pro 9800
Let me know what you find out!

Rev Marcus

 

[Joe727]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me info/advice when I
posted about wanting to finally switching from nVida to ATI, as well as the
people who responded to my post about buying the 9800 and got a TNT2 m64
inside! Anyway, it looks like maybe the opposite has happened now? I was
able to get the ATI Radeon 9800 at Circuit City and they gave it to me for
the BB sale price of $239. When I installed it and checked out the advanced
settings, it says...
Adapter Type: RADEON 9800 PRO
Chip Type: RADEON 9800 AGP (0x4E48)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Memory Size: 128 MB
Adapter String: RADEON 9800 PRO
Bios Information: BK-ATI VER008.004.008.18

Is this a PRO card? Sure looks like it, but I definitely bought the non-pro
9800 (at least according to the box).

Also, I've noticed two issues so far...first issue is that I played Halo and
there is big performance loss compared to the Geforce 3 that I just switched
out. All I did was uninstall my Detonator 51.75 drivers, shut down the pc
and put in the 9800 and installed the latest catalyst drivers that I
downloaded (3.7, I believe?). I have anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering
set to the lowest setting. I didn't really mess with the driver settings
after installing them. Anyone know how a Geforce 3 would be outperforming
the 9800 in Halo? Are there any guides to what you should set the ATI
drivers to? I've been used to the Detonators for like the last 4 yrs or so.

Second issue, while I was playing Halo, the system shut down HARD. I had to
unplug the motherboard power connector and reconnect it to get it to even
come back on. Box says I should have a 300 watt PSU and I do. Here's
currently what I have in the system...

Antec 300 PSU
Epox 8KHA+ MB
Athlon XP 1.4
512MB PC2100 ram
2 Maxtor 40 gig ATA133 HDs
Sony 32X burner
LiteOn 16x DVD drive
SB Audigy sound card (have the audigy drive but it is not plugged in)
PCI ethernet card

Hey, thanks again for all the help/info/advice. You guys are awesome!

A couple of things - you have a VIA chipset so update the chipset drivers.
The latest are the Hyperion 4 in 1 4.49 drivers available here:

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

You might want to check the Epox site to see if there is a newer BIOS for
your motherboard than the one you have now.

Joe

 

[Shawk]

A couple of things - you have a VIA chipset so update the chipset drivers.
The latest are the Hyperion 4 in 1 4.49 drivers available here:

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

You might want to check the Epox site to see if there is a newer BIOS for
your motherboard than the one you have now.

Joe

When I upgraded from my GF3 Ti200 I had to remove and then re-install some
of my games so that they 'noticed' my ATI and set up the display correctly.
Some of the posters here know of certain files within the games that mean
you only delete these rather than reinstall but unfortunately - I aint one
of them.

 

[sb]

Yep, already had the latest Hyperion 4 drivers and the latest bios. I stay
on top of that stuff, but good call! Thanks.

I think I probably will reinstall XP fresh and see what that does. Because
at this point it has not been worth the cost of the card and I was thinking
of returning it and sitting on my GeForce 3 for a while. Also, I ran the
3DMark03 benchmark and it wouldn't even complete the benchmark - got an
error saying benchmark aborted!

 

[Thomas]

Yep, already had the latest Hyperion 4 drivers and the latest bios. I
stay on top of that stuff, but good call! Thanks.

I think I probably will reinstall XP fresh and see what that does.
Because at this point it has not been worth the cost of the card and
I was thinking of returning it and sitting on my GeForce 3 for a
while. Also, I ran the 3DMark03 benchmark and it wouldn't even
complete the benchmark - got an error saying benchmark aborted!

Well, that clearly shows there's some driver problem... Really, when I do a
major upgrade; mainboard or vidcard, I ALWAYS reinstall windows... It's such
a big change, that it's really almost the only option... My games i can
usually still run, though...

Thomas.

 

[rms]

Raise the AGP voltage 1 or 2 notches, and run 3dmark until its stable.

rms

 

[6bal]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me info/advice when I
posted about wanting to finally switching from nVida to ATI, as well as the
people who responded to my post about buying the 9800 and got a TNT2 m64
inside!

WOW
That same thing happened to me at BB. Whoever did it went though a lot
of trouble to make it look unopened. They even removed the 9800 pros
serial number sticker from the card and placed it on the cheap tnt
card just in case someone opened the (supposedly) unopened box.

I was so sure BB was going to screw me but got lucky and found a
rookie manager that returned it no problem even though every manager
that had to sign off on the return kept asking "was it obviously
opened before?"

I think the sticker swap saved my ass because they knew I couldn't
have done it that fast. I had only had it for 30 minutes before I
called them and the sticker had been soaked off and would have taken
more time than that.

BTW The TNT card didn't even work.

Oh and I don't know if you have a 9800 pro

 

[6bal]

Second issue, while I was playing Halo, the system shut down HARD. I had to
unplug the motherboard power connector and reconnect it to get it to even
come back on. Box says I should have a 300 watt PSU and I do. Here's
currently what I have in the system...

WOW again!

This happened to me the minute I put my 9800 pro in. It would just
shut down the PC. Is your power led still on after the shut down?
At first I did what you did then I noticed the power LED was still
on. After that I just had to hold the power button in until the MB
powered off like normal and then could reboot.

Long story short the 9800 pro takes more power. I also had a 300watt
PS and after adding up everything in the box it was obvious that I was
pushing the limits of that 300 watts. I upgraded PS to a TruePower 430
and haven't had a shut down since.

Get new PS with more power. GEt one that has a good 12v rail

 

[Wayne Youngman]

Yep, already had the latest Hyperion 4 drivers and the latest bios. I stay
on top of that stuff, but good call! Thanks.

I think I probably will reinstall XP fresh and see what that does. Because
at this point it has not been worth the cost of the card and I was thinking
of returning it and sitting on my GeForce 3 for a while. Also, I ran the
3DMark03 benchmark and it wouldn't even complete the benchmark - got an
error saying benchmark aborted!

Hi,

sounds like a pain! I too use the 9800 and so far so good (very good even!).
Before you even think of returning a product that is having problems you
should always try to do a *clean* install of your operating system. I'm
sure allot of people here can get away without doing this, but if all else
fails what have you got to lose?
--
Wayne ][

Barton (AQXEA) XP2500+ @ 2.2GHz (10x220) - 1.75vCore
CoolerMaster Aero 7 Lite - 3,200rpm
ABIT NF7-S (v2.0 - BIOS#14)
512MB Dual TwiSTER PC3500 @ DDR440 1:1 (8,3,3,2.0 - 2.8v)
Sapphire Atlantis 9800 - 3.3ns Samsung
240GB (2x120GB) WD-SE SATA RAID-0 (16k Stripe)
Antec SX630II Mini-Tower Case Inc 300w PSU
WinXP-PRO-SP1
Cat 3.7 - DX9.0b

 

[Pluvious]

Second issue, while I was playing Halo, the system shut down HARD. I had to
unplug the motherboard power connector and reconnect it to get it to even
come back on. Box says I should have a 300 watt PSU and I do. Here's
currently what I have in the system...

Don't use Halo as any sort of judge of how much better ATI is then Nvidia. Halo
runs like shit on ANY system. Fire up another favorite of your's and you'll see
a MAJOR difference with the 9800 PRO.

I also suggest you bite the bullet and reformat or reinstall XP. A clean XP
install is always a good thing. (IF you have two hard drives.. put the OS on one
harddrive and EVERYTHING else on the other. That way in the future you can just
format the first drive whenever you have 'issues' and won't loose all your other
data.

Pluvious

 

[Thomas]

(IF you have two hard
drives.. put the OS on one harddrive and EVERYTHING else on the
other. That way in the future you can just format the first drive
whenever you have 'issues' and won't loose all your other data.

Good advice!! But, you dont need two harddrives; just two partitions. I have
been practising this 'trick' for about 7 years.... From the time i strated
using Windows 95, to be exact

Thomas

 

[chrisv]

IF you have two hard drives.. put the OS on one
harddrive and EVERYTHING else on the other. That way in the future you can just
format the first drive whenever you have 'issues' and won't loose all your other
data.

Easier said than done. Windoze WANTS to put stuff in
%systemroot%\Program Files

 

[Thomas]

Easier said than done. Windoze WANTS to put stuff in
%systemroot%\Program Files

Yeap... like Office and stuff... Well, i reinstall that too It's
especially my documents, pics, music and games i put on the second (and
third, and fourth..) harddrives.

Thomas.

 

[Tom]

(IF you have two hard drives.. put the OS on one
harddrive and EVERYTHING else on the other.

He can't do that - you missed the point that he uses the 2 drives in a
RAID 0 configuration! The 2 drives are in essence 1 drive as the data
is alternately written between the 2.

-=tom=-