Radeon 9800Pro - Not Enough Juice?

KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired)By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
edited April 2005 in Hardware
So I managed to get my hands on a Radeon 9800Pro with a sweet Zalman heatsink. Right now I'm running at stock speeds but I'm seeing artifacts when playing games. I'm running a 350W PSU with 2 HDs, 6 fans, and 2 optical drives. My mobo is an Abit NF7-S. I plugged in the 12v rail, so I thought I would have enough juice. Am I stretching the PSU too far? Do I need to increase the AGP voltage and/or do I need to upgrade to a higher wattage PSU?

I can't believe that I would see artifacts in a game as graphic unintensive as KotOR II, even with AA and anisotropic filtering turned on.

The card is a Sapphire Radeon with Samsung memory (3ns?), running latest Catalyst drivers.

Comments

  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    u did plug in the molex power to the 9800pro right?

    im running similar to you(nf7-s,9800pro,3hdd's,2optical,fewfans) and have no problems with artifacting. im using a OCZ Powerstream 420w though.

    check make sure the hsf is making good contact and that ur not having overheating probs
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    Yeah, molex is plugged in, but that plug has a lot of stuff on it. I might be getting my hands on a 430W Antec PSU over the weekend, so maybe that will help. Or, it may just be that I bought a lemon. :shakehead
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    download a program like Radlinker or Rage3d tweak and see what speeds ur gpu/mem are. it could posssibly br overclocked or bios flashed to a higher clock. alot of 9800pro's that have the R360 core can be flashed to 9800XT's. I'm pretty sure the clock freq on 9800pro is 380gpu and 340mem. just some thoughts
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    ATI Tool reports 380 core, 350 memory. Will Radlinker or Rage3D Tweak show the BIOS version?
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    Radlinker doesnt, its just a clock utility. rage3d tweak might, but i dont use so...

    could try a program called everest , i have a screeny here that shows my overclock

    with articfacts, its usually and overclock issue, but i guess it could be heat/bios/psu :D does it do it in all games? direct3d? openGL?
  • FlatulusFlatulus
    edited April 2005
    Im having exact same problem. Look at the attached image.

    I made a separate post:

    http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30826

    -Flat
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited April 2005
    I dont think artifacting like you are describing would be due to a PSU connection. I ran my 9800 pro overclocked pretty heavily with a 300Watt enermax when my antec died a while back.

    How are your case temps? I would check to ensure your card is not overheating. I noticed that you mentioned it had a Zalman heatsink. Is that a passive sink? You may want to check that it is seated on the GPU well, and perhaps have a fan blowing across it . Are these artifacts occuring right away? or are they slowly getting worse as you play a game?..

    You can also use ATITool or another overclocking utility to underclock the card. R9800's can safely operate as low as 180MHz core, so try to take it down several notches. Keep lowering it to see if it makes a difference. If it does make a difference, heat could be an issue, or the core could be shotty. You could also try to reduce the memory clock. Is 350MHz the stock memory clock? Its been awhile since I had my 9800P,
  • Enk1duEnk1du
    edited April 2005
    i hate to interupt a thread with an off topic question but how could i lower the temp of my card without voiding the waranty by putting an extra fan on it? Would i just have to start droping tons of fans in my case?
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited April 2005
    Enk1du wrote:
    i hate to interupt a thread with an off topic question but how could i lower the temp of my card without voiding the waranty by putting an extra fan on it? Would i just have to start droping tons of fans in my case?

    You'd be amazed what you can accomplish with some zip-ties :D You can position an 80mm case fan to blow across the card if you have some bunches of power supply cables hanging close by. Just use some zip-ties of twist-ties to hold the fan in place. I know it seems a little ghetto, but the airflow it provides does help. Just be careful that any stray cables don't find their way into the fan blades.

    I did something similar to cool my memory, but I just used some twist-ties to hold a 120mm fan to the side of the case. Check out the first pic in this thread to see it.. http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30721
  • BubblemanBubbleman A Desert
    edited April 2005
    Well I installed an new power supply today its great for the radeon and made it work.
Sign In or Register to comment.