The Buzzsaw

fan?

Yep I agree with the preecher, clear it away, clean it out, and see if that helps.

Replacing the fan is easy if it's dying, but maybe not worth it for such an aging card, depends the cost of replacement.

I just suggest a new GPU if he doesn't want an overall system rebuild.

For him he has a AGP 8x so here is a card that will drastically imrpove performance over what he has now:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] ICEGRABBER

I am sure you can find a better price but thats one nice card really.

Don't get me wrong though. I loved my 9800XT to death until someone stole it from my car..... dam dirty theifs...

This would be the absolute fastest GPU you could put into an AGP slot (that I am aware of). Your friend's PSU cannot handle it:
SAPPHIRE 100228L Radeon HD 3850 512MB

This card would be a good price/performance compromise as far as AGP cards go. Your friend's PSU should be able to run it provided that the 12V rail is strong enough:
HIS Hightech H26XF512ANP Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB *Edit* Nevermind, that card apparently has issues.

In all honesty I would recommend that your friend just save up for a new computer. AGP is dead

True about the PSU, but the HD2600 is pretty light on power consumption, so it might work...

I'll go out on a limb here and state that if the PSU could run an X800XT (questionable, but he OP seems to think so), it could handle an HD2600XT. Power figures on the X800XT are hard to find though, so I can't really back that statement up. It's more like an educated guess/assumption.

Yeah, it's iffy, I'm not sure about the X800XT as it was truly a power hungry animal, and while the R9800XT was pretty power hungry too, I would say it is that extra step.

The HD2600 is probably within that envelope of the X800XT, but once again that is a guess, remember the X800XL was on that fine line for PCIe where it was with/without an external connector, but on AGP required the extra power, so that XL would be just under the 75W draw mark, whereas the 800XT required power in addition to the PCIe slot. So the X800XT would definitely require more than an R9800XT.

Here's the power draw figures I pulled from Xbit Labs;

X800 series;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

X1600 series;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] 006_7.html

HD2600XT;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

So just about the same as an X800XL for all three (X1600XT not pro) not that much more for an HD2600 apparently ~5W, which is a bit surprising. The more surprising thing is the high power draw of the GF6600GT as much as an X800XL or HD2600XT.

Now the question is how well does that PSU of his handle that power.

Do what I did with my 9700 pro when it died.

Step 1: Remove old fan from heatsink
Step 2: Strap a 80mm fan to the side of it with zip ties.

Done!

FYI, that card still lives. Currently resides in my file storage box. Running strong for 7 years now. I gamed on it untill last fall. Ahh, the golden years for ATI....

Remember though, most NewEgg user reviews are by IDIOTS!

I've read so many of them where I've said to myself "Clean out your OLD Drivers!" , "It's your system that's a bottleneck idjit!" or "Not even a GF8800GTS will do that in Crysis!" kind of thing.
The best part is most of the people with n00b issues put themselves down as tech savy. Maybe when they selected 'high' they were talking baout their mental state at the time.

In general I give NewEgg reviews 0 weight, other than to find out what readers of Cnet or BestBuy shoppers might do with a product.

Anywhoo, just my personal pet peeves about NewEgg 'reviews'.

yeah, I can't speak with first hand knowledge of the quality of drivers for that card, but from what I have heard they are questionable.

Don't rule out a x1600 series card or a nvidia 7600 series. I am assuming, based on having a 9800xt, that the CPU isn't real new. Either of those cards would be an improvement over the 9800xt. If you can, get them with GDDr3 memory. That does bring up the issue of making sure you have sufficent power, but I don't think either card takes more than the x2600.

I think he his going to try and get a new comp, but he needs to save first. The X800 technically will run on the 250 PSU, but my friend is very paranoid.

One drop of plastic safe oil usually fixes a noisy fan like that. But it's not that simple. You need to take it apart, clean all the dust on the blades with q-tips and rubbing alcohol, and then peel a sticker to find the spindle. It may be a pain to get to, but I've fixed chipset and vga fans making that type noise loads of times with a single drop of oil.

Are you talking about the 9800XT showing white spots, if yes is the fan still making that noise? Or are you talking about a new card?

If the 9800xt worked, the 9700 will too. Performance should be similar too. Obviously a little slower, but not by much.

grey/white snow is usually artifacts from the GPU core running too high/hot.

Underclocking the core alittle might make that go away. Also, removing the heatsink, cleaning it, and applying artic silver thermal compound as well as making sure the fan spins properly and is dust free can help that. The card may or may not be permanently damaged at this point.


For fun, let me try keeping the case open and blowing a house fan into it. If the snow doesn't appear, the card simply needs better cooling or less core MHz.