ATI 9700 Pro & P4S800 Errors

[Madness2003]

Ok lemme first describe my system:

2 X 256MB of DDR 3200 Ram
2.6ghz P4 800mhz FSB
P4S800 Asus Motherboard
Soundblaster Live MP3
ATI 9700 Pro

Ok I just put this system together last night. Here is the problem, the card works fine when I am surfing the net or checking e-mail etc but when I run a game like Star Wars Galaxies or UT2003, I get these sharp looking blurred images that seem to cut through the graphics. The card doesnt crash and the system stays stable but when the graphics are like this its almost impossible to play. The problem usually subdues after I restart but recently I was in bios and the same error occured which lead me to belive that it is in fact a motherboard issue and not a driver issue. I have tried almost everything to fix this problem. I initially thought it was a driver problem so I tried all types of catalyst drivers from the ati web page, that did not fix problem so next I thought maybe it was a heat issue, so I attached 2 fans and fixed them so they pointed straight at the video card. That didnt work either, I am getting very frustrated, I do not know what to try now, I tried changing the AGP Aperture Size, I even tried setting the AGP clock to 2X and 4X none of this has fixed the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rigtisright]

I noted in the Asus P4P800 MB manual that they say to use an ATI 9500-9700 Pro with PN number greater than PN xxx-xxxxx-30 for optimum performance and stability. This strangely enough is the only graphics card they warn about. Apparently after this PN number there was a specification change in the ATI card (Asus didn't tell me specifically what this change was). If your card doesn't meet this requirement and you can return it I sure would. I suspect the specification change has to do with AGP8X. I've read on other forums that ATI used a non-standard implementation of AGP8X.

 

[rigtisright]

On other forums one of the solutions to problems similar to yours is to put in a larger better quality power supply. People with a 300 watt generic power supply can have problems. The recommendation is at least a 350 watt brand name power supply, more if you have multiple hard drives, fans or DVD CD's.

 

[Madness2003]

My case has a 450 PSU, how do i check the PN on my video card?

 

[rigtisright]

The ATI PN number is found on a tag right on graphics card. There is the only one number that starts with PN.