Radeon 9800SE AIW>9800PRO AIW

[Alkan]

i have a 400w psu. p4 2.4 processor.

have spoke to a few friends who know far more about pc's than myself but they cannot help. I have posted on other forums but still no luck.

i don't understand why the card works with normal stuff (ie internet, media player) and works with tiger woods 2003 on max graphic settings. Anything more complex the machine freezes.

is it possible that the card is faulty?

[Austin]

Try diff drivers ensuring you fully uninstall any old ones (inc related sw like control panel). Other than that try doing a fresh install or try it someone else's PC. It may very well be faulty. What make is your PSU as not all 400W are equal (by any means)? What type of mobo do you have as it could be some freak incompatibility (esp VIA)? Try disabling Fast Writes and using AGP4x instead of AGP8x (neither of which hurt perf). You may need to do that in both the mobo BIOS and the Windows drivers. Best of luck!

[Alkan]

Thanks for the info.

Last night I reduced it to 4X through windows and it worked.

However, i am still a bit confused as my motherboard is a MSI MS-6585 P4 S478. It is supposed to be able to handle 8X as is the AIW 9800se.

Thank you

ps Is there a possibility that the BIOS has it switched onto 4X rather than 8X. If i can change this to 8X it may work?
However i could not find the switch for this in the BIOS only in windows

[Trickle]

9800SE: 2001=12000 03=3500
9800PRO: 2001=17000 03=5500

9800SE 440/380 TbredB 2.1GHz @ 166Bus Cas3 Nforce2 = 14750 and was >12000 at stock iirc. The overclocking didnt give too much extra.

I found that running >200bus cas2 used to give me much better results all round so I would say Austins expectations are conservative. An overclocked failed 9800SE should give similar DX8 bench results to an overclocked Ti4600. Overclocked 9600XT, however, seems to give slightly better DX9 results.

[Trickle]

Originally posted by Alkan
ps Is there a possibility that the BIOS has it switched onto 4X rather than 8X. If i can change this to 8X it may work?
However i could not find the switch for this in the BIOS only in windows

Picking the thread up half way through....

You havent checked the bios AGP setting? What does the gart settings pannel say... or does that only come with the catalyst drivers (cant check from here)? Have you tried turning fast rights off? Edit: Ah I see Austin has covered this.

You also dont state whehter the OS is a clean install or if previous gfx drivers were present Alkan. Have you tried other versions of ATI's drivers? You can get utils for cleaning those off from places like guru3d.com or go through Austins long list.

[Stoo]

8X AGP is somewhat pointless virtually nothing makes use of it and more often that not it ends up causing stability problems..
Keep that sucker at 4x

[Flymo]

Hi Guys.
Found this thread whilst browsing and thought I would register just to clear a few things up.

1. NOT ALL 9800SE AIWs are moddable to 9800 PRO AIW cards. Cant say just how important this is. You are TAKING A RISK if you are relying on buying a moddable card for gaming purposes. (although www.radeonshop.de DO sell guaranteed moddable 9800SE cards)

2. 9800SE AIWs come clocked at 380/340 - the exact same clock speeds asa 9800PRO card.

3. The mem on these cards IS ALREADY OVERCLOCKED BY 10%. The mem chips on any of these cards I have seen is samsung 3.3ns RAM which is rated for 300MHZ. as they are clocked at 330, that is a 10% increase over spec.

4. Most of the cards will do 415 CORE and 360MEM with stock cooling and no voltmods

5. A Softmod is done using modified drivers from a site such as www.ocfaq.com . BIOS flashing is NOT necessary for a softmod.

6. If you want a more permanent solution, you need to do a hardmod AND a BIOS flash. One or the other is not sufficient - it must be both. Get the BIOS from www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios.php . Either of the AIW Pro Bioses are suitable as both are for 2.8ns Samsung RAM. The hardmod is EXACTLY the same as for the 9500>>9700 Mod. BEFORE you mod the card, remove all drivers, shut down the PC, mod the card, reinsert it and install UNMODIFIED (ie regular catalyst) Drivers

7. To check wether or not the mod has worked, use rivatuner - it will state wether the card is a r350 (8x1) OR r350 (4x1). The (8X1) means all 8 pipes are now activated. Then bench it using whatever benching software you prefer to make sure there is no checkerboard effect.

8. Make sure your PSU is up to the job. I had a 9800SE AIW kill a 300W PSU 1st time it ran. 400W plus is recommended (esp since they are so cheap now. A poor PSU can SOMETIMES cause the checkerboard effect.

9. A VCORE voltmod to the card can sometimes get rid of the checkerboard effect. (as can raising the AGP voltage to 1.7V in the BIOS of your MOBO (if supported).

10 GOOD LUCK


BTW, I got mine off www.lowestonweb.com for £127 when they first came out. VCORE at 2.0V Watercooled with a dangerden geforce/radeon WB. No heatsinks on the ram (yet). Clocks at 525/364 for benching, but slight artifacts near the end due to heat.
Runs at 510/358 24/7 now with no problems.
3D marks in sig.


HTH, and sorry for the long first post.


Flymo