problem with radeon 9800 pro 128mb... 1

[kylemane]

i have a seriously bad problem with my card and i dont know why. i have tried everything everyone has told me, installing drivers uninstalling and such i've even reformatted....but still to no avail....my problem= i have an
AMD3000+(2.16ghz)
1gig of DDR ram.
ATI/Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb.

now not so long ago i bought that card, and a new power suply which is a 500, everything was working good, now recently it has gone down hill
i cant even play any graphical games without it getting a VPU recover error or totally hardlocking my whole system....i have reformatted my computer, re installed everything, and it still exists.....i do not know what to do, but i am so frustrated i am about ready to take the ar15 to this machine....if you could help me please i am desperate!!!!

 

[electronicsfreak]

Might want to check the cooling on the card. See how well its getting cooled. Some manufacturers just put enough on the video card to get buy. So check out the cooling on it. If its using a cooling that is equivilant to cheap alluminum you might visit your local computer store for chipset/video card cooling kits for replacement. If it has a good heatsink on it, get a fan for it and mout it on the heatsink. If there are no ways of mouting it, use thermal tape or something of the like for holding it on.

 

[kylemane]

thats good information i guess, but i dont know what the heat sink is or how to see if its getting cooled properly so if you could tell me how to check i will, otherwise i guess i dont know.

 

[electronicsfreak]

A heatsink is a metal block that pulls heat off the main chip. Ill show you pics. On the link below you see an orange block with a fan on it. The orange block is the heatsink. That is a good one. Anyways some come with good ones some dont, if you have a good heatsink on it add a fan. Now the way you can tell a good heatsink is if its nice and thick and not like an aluminem can. A good heatsink usually has ridges on it. So if yours has a good heatsink then add a fan to it. Just when you look at it be sure your not on carpet and grab the case before you grab any componets to be sure no static is in you.

http://www.halfdone.com/Personal/Job/Pictures/High_End_Odd_and_Cool/CPU_heatsink_on_video_card.jpg

 

[Frank4d]

The ATI All in Wonder Radeom 9800 Pro has a four pin power connector... I suspect your card does too. Make sure your power supply is plugged in to it.

 

[kylemane]

my power supply is plugged in and my heatsink looks kinda small although it has a fan on it im not sure....ill try to take a picture of it

 

[kiddpete]

If it has a fan, clean it thoroughly with compressed air.

 

[BaudKarma]

Kind of late coming in on this thread, but I had the same problem. Turns out the fan on the 9800 was b a r e l y spinning, so the card would overheat after being used for a while. Then I'd get VPU Recover, lockups, whatever.

You can suspect overheating if your video works fine when you turn the computer on, then it degrades after a while. Turning it off and right back on doesn't do any good, but turning it off and leaving it off for a while helps.

I didn't want to screw with replacing the fan or the heat sink, so I just picked up a card cooler. It's a doodad that fits into the slot next to your video card. A fan sucks in air from outside the case and blows it down right onto your video processor. Since I've installed that, no more video problems.

I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.