Radeon 9800 Pro, Dell GX400 + Red Hat Linux - any experiences?

[Walt Morris]

I have a Dell Optiplex GX400 that I loaded Red Hat Linux on, with the
stock video card (ATI Rage 128 Ultra). All was well.

Then I upgraded the video card to a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB memory.
Now when Linux starts up the system locks up when you try to log in
using the graphical login screen. Booting to only run level 3 to run
redhat-config-xfree also hangs when running the graphical configuration
tool. The first boot after the switch it did detect the change in video
card and I did remove the old configuration and let it install the new one.

Using the 9800 under windows 2000 works fine at the same resolutions, so
I don't suspect the card outright. Has anyone else successfully used
the Radeon 9800 under Linux on such a Dell box? I've seen posts where
the 9800 is credited with system lockups and other weird behavior if the
power supply isn't 'up to snuff' - is that a possible cause of my problem?

Thanks,
Walt Morris
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Joe Krahn]

I have had problems off and on with ATI drivers for a long time,
particularly with scientific applications that use lines, bitmap
chars, etc.

I have had better luck using the closed-source drivers from ATI.
Otherwise, lockups tend to be from AGP issues. Sometimes reducing
the AGP speed helps.

Joe Krahn

 

[Walt Morris]

Joe,

That was it - getting the driver from ATI cured my problem!

Thanks,
Walt