morning,

have a problem with my MSI Radeon 9800 Pro card. games like CS 1.6 and Source suddenly freezed / crashed after few minutes of play, which never happened with my Radeon 9250 before. tried few things like using different drivers and disabled / enabled the Fast Write, but that didn't solve the problem. also got blank screen and had to restart the pc everytime it happened.

what's the actual problem, and is it caused by motherboard, bios, power supply etc..? or the problem comes from the graphic card itself?

my pc specs:

P4 2.4A
Asus P4V8X-X motherboard
400W PSU
512 x 2 rams
Win XP SP2

really hope to keep and use it without any problem. please help me. thanx guys.

i think it is. e Master brand that comes/bundled together with the casing.

yep, never overclocked it although im using Omega drive. didn't install the OC feature. even removed both covers of casing to allow more air flow.

here's what i found from the log file of ATI Tool:

2006-09-12 11:38:34 ATITool v0.24 started.
2006-09-12 11:38:34 Detected GPU Chip: R350 (4E48), 8 Pipelines, 128 MB
2006-09-12 11:38:34 Temperature monitoring: chip not detected


This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 12 2006, 11:54 AM

yep, definitely 533fsb. is it not good enough to support radeon 9800 pro?

so the real problem here is the PSU rite?

ltw82, im downloading Everest now. will give the temperature read later. thanx.

This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 12 2006, 12:23 PM

i've checked the BIOS just now, and couldn't find the Choose Compatible Mode.

now im quite worry that i might spoil the card as a consequence of using unsuitable PSU. only played CS 1.6 couple of times before as i just bought it last Sunday. what's the sign of broken gc? should i unplug the card till i get new PSU? it's not a cheap gc at all, at least not to me.

This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 12 2006, 01:53 PM

i've tried for so many times, and still couldn't find the CPU Compatible Mode. maybe i got an outdated bios. never flashed since i bought it back in late 2003.

guess the only solution now is to find better PSU rite?

what did u mean by that? sorry for being a noob.

ok, i'll get a new pure/true PSU as soon as possible. thanks guys for the helps.

This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 12 2006, 07:31 PM

yep, i did that.

used to connect to 2 hard drives and 2 roms before. then removed 1 hd and a cdrw rom. so now there're only 1 hard drive, a dvd rom and also the graphic card itself.

i didn't know that before. thanx for telling me.

so if i have the options of getting either normal iCute 450w or Enlight 350w True power, which one should i buy? wanna make sure that it's good enough to support all the hardwares i mentioned.. 2 hds, 2 roms, a gc, cpu HSF..

thanks tyrion4 for the advice.

another problem and i just can't understand it. i've removed/unplugged both dvd/cdrw roms and also a hard disk. so now only left 1 hard disk and the radeon 9800 pro.. alongside other basic stuffs such as rams, cpu HSF and usb modem. even removed both usb scanner and printer. so it should reduce the power consumption rite?

but i tried playing games just now and it still freezed. so does it mean that there's something wrong with the graphic card itself? the guy who sold the card said that he didn't reapply the thermal paste on the GPU when he reinstalled the stock hsf, after removing the Zalman hsf from the card. so, is the problem caused by this?

and i haven't managed to get the gc's temperature read yet, coz both ATI Tool and Everest didn't support the chip. sorry guys.

This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 14 2006, 08:38 AM

guys, i've reapplied the thermal paste on the card/GPU, but that still didn't solve the freezing/hang problem. i played CS 1.6 and Source for about 1-2 hours and then started to freeze again. i checked the heatsink and found out that it was quite hot as it used to during freeze. could this be a problem from the card itself? is the stock cooling on radeon 9800 pro not good enough to handle the heat from games like CS 1.6?

for the info, i've removed both sides of my pc case to allow more airflow, and only play games at night, with the air conditioning on. i also tried to use different ATI drivers including Omega and Catalyst 6.7 and 6.8, and i've never overclocked it, not even once. but the freezing problem still exists.

question is now, do i have the right to return the card to the seller and ask him to make full refund to me? personal warranty will expire by tomorrow.

it's ok. that's why i need opinions. thanx.

but i said about the heat, is the stock cooling good enough to handle the heat, not whether the 9800 pro can handle CS 1.6 game or not. of course i know it can play that game. and for the info, the freeze problem happened after 1-2 hours of game play, not right after the game started.

my mobo is P4V8X-X, so is it similar to P4P800X-X that u mentioned?

i have tried it on my friend's pc which is AMD Athlon with Abit mobo, and still got the same problem. but will give another try on my other friend's pc. i'll let u know the result. u stay in Klang?

and is the PSU still an issue here, although i already removed most of the hardwares/devices? i've removed 1 of the 2 hard disks, both ROMs and all USB based devices expect the usb modem. so it should've reduced the power consumption rite?

This post has been edited by theripper: Sep 18 2006, 12:33 PM

yep, well attached to the chip set / GPU. also reapplied some thermal paste on it.

thinking of getting a much better heatsink but without the fan. Zalman is good rite?