Solved: Help with new ATI card boot error

Edit: I eventually just returned the card and got an Nvidia card, which is working fine. The problem was probably in the motherboard or chipset.

I've been all over the internet trying to find a single case of someone having the same problem as I've been having, and have found nothing.

I recently purchased a Radeon x1600xt AGP card to replace my 9600xt AGP. After installing the new card (and a new power supply), I found that the boot process wouldn't get past the screen saying "Verifying DMI pool..." and would eventually default to the second boot device.

I checked and rechecked the PSU power cord connections on everything, including the gfx card itself, and the harddrives and everything. Most people online who have this hang-up at the DMI screen have had harddrive or CD/DVD issues. However, when I put the old 9600 in everything boots up and works fine.

I tried all the solutions I could find to similar issues, including updating my BIOS and chipset drivers, and clearing the CMOS, but it only gets as far as "Verifying DMI pool... Update Success" which is a little farther, but not much.

The following are my specs:
WinXP Home
Abit KV8 mobo
Athlon64 3000+
Radeon 9600xt AIW
1.5gb RAM
Antec TruePower Trio 650w PSU
Hitachi 120gb SATA hdd
Maxtor 200gb SATA hdd

Could my mobo not be compatible with Radeon X series cards? I don't see how that's possible, since I thought it was just an AGP issue (my mobo supports 4x/8x, and the new card is 8x). Is there anything I'm missing?