[rgh]

My Radeon ATI 9800XXL is overheating & shutting down the display (I think the cooling fan died) so I need to another card. The computer is a Medion P4 3.0Ghz HT running the standard 512 RAM (2 X 256).

The upgrade needs to handle my 7 y/o's gaming needs (currently Cars) for a couple of years. If I stick with ATI, do I go for a 256MB 9600PRO ($85) or a 256MB 9600XT ($139) OR do I swap over to Geforce & get a 128MB 6800XT ($155) or 256MB 7600GS ($185)? I take it now would be a good time to upgrade the RAM - what do you guys recommend?

Any other thoughts on how to move forward with an upgrade?

My budget is around $200 (US$140) for the card, $100 (US$70)for memory - I don't want to sink a bundle into this computer as it'll get pensioned off in a year or two. I've got a couple of other more recent computers but they have on board video that won't play the kids game. We don't have the money atm to get a new computer for the kid to play games on - so I'm fixing up the old Medion for him

 

[rgh]

Just wondering if there is anymore info I can add so that someone could advise me?

 

[crjdriver]

This might seem silly, however why not pull the card and replace the vga fan? As for ram, I would go to crucial's site and input your make and model of system. They will show all compatible ram. I assume you are running xp correct? 1gig of ram should be enough.

 

[rgh]

Are the fans easy to replace? I had thought all the overheating would've damaged the card - but the card (not the fan) works for a while when I start the computer- if I can replace the fan then that would save a lot $$ - it's a DC12V=1.4W - is it likely to be an off the shelf item at a decent computer store?

 

[crjdriver]

You need to pull the card and remove the old cooler. There are a few different ways they are installed so you need to look at your individual card. As to whether or not you damaged the card, the only way to tell is to replace the fan and see. Here is an example of a card cooler. Newegg link

 

[Rich-M]

You can usually buy replacement fans for a few bucks at Radio Shack and they are usually just screwed on and plug in much like a case fan.

 

[rgh]

I managed to get the old fan off & scavenged a similar size fan from an old computer. I just screwed the 'new' fan into the blades of the 'heatsink' on the card and hotwired the power cable for it. I put the card back in the slot and has been running without overheating for 3hrs or more!!

Thanks for the fix!

Only prob I have now is it doesn't seem to work quite right - I get a exclamation mark in a yellow dot next to the radeon 9800 XT under device manager (it is actually a 9800XXL - but I've loaded the latest driver and windows is identifying it as a 9800 XT. If I uninstal the the card in Device Manager and then scan for hardware it loads up OK without the exclamation. When I restart, when i check the device manager again I have the exclamation back... I also get two devices listed both 9800XL but the one is called secondary...

Is this card stuffed or is something else mucked up in windows (XP SP2), the driver or settings somewhere?

 

[crjdriver]

All modern ati cards show two display adapters; primary and secondary. That is normal.
Next this is what I would do.

1 That is an older card and I would not be installing the latest driver for it. I would be using something like a 5.12 or so. Uninstall the current driver.

2 Now run driver cleaner this will remove any trace of the previous driver.

3 Once that is finished, reboot and install the ati driver. Again I would not be installing the latest one. That is really made for the Xseries cards ie x1900, etc.

 

[rgh]

Yep tried all that - tried it for hours & hours. It took 3-4 goes to download a driver version that would run & then no 9800xxl version - using a 9800XT driver seems the only option and I still get problems each time I reboot. I don't think I can stand spending anymore time on this - would a new card with new software be likely to resolve it? This computer crashed the original hard drive and the backup discs were damaged as the kids got to them. An IT friend (runs support for a big accounting firm) got it running - but I seem to have a lot of problems doing almost anything with it - I don't want to use up too much more of his goodwill or you good folks here - do I try a new card, or a new MOBO (Vista compliant) or get a new box completely??????

 

[rgh]

Well I went & bought a xpretvision 7600GS agp card, loaded up the drivers & guess what - same exclamation in yellow dot under device manager after reboot. So the good news is my modified ATI 9800 card seems to work as well as a brand new card...

What other info can I supply to try & get to the bottom of what's causing the error? 'Cars' the video game won't run under either card - 'unsupported video configuration' message on both cards

 

[crjdriver]

Have you installed your chipset drivers for the motherboard? If so, you might want to download updated ones and reinstall. After that, I would then install the driver for the vid card.
Next thing to try would be system file checker [sfc.exe]
Next would be a repair install of the os.
Final thing to do would be clean install after backing up any data you want to keep.

 

[Rich-M]

Beginning to sound more like another hardware issue, possibly dying hard drive. Any clicking coming from it? What model, how old?
At this point I would rule out software by reformatting and doing clean install. Possible whatever IT did to save OS was "band aid" and registry is really whacked out. If clean install doesn't do it then download hard drive utility from whoever made the drive and check drive though if old these utilities don't often pinpoint problems. I would also run checkdisk on it before doing anything after new install.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I am replacing mobo on 2 yr old Gateway as we speak here where a bad video card seems to have killed whole system including board and psu.

 

[rgh]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I'll try a new install in the morning to rule that out - I have a brand new 80G Hard Drive that could go in at the same time - if there are still problems after that it might be adios.
Sorry to hear about your dead system Rich - could be something similar going on here.
Next step will be to return the 7600GS card to the shop - $220 (AUD) towards the new machine...
Just what we need Post Xmas...

 

[Rich-M]

rgh,
Hold off returning the card, if your problem is like mine, you may need it...again this is a client machine and it is sooo bizarre it had me spooked. I didn't actually know what was wrong until I went to install video card and psu on new build customer ordered to replace dead Gateway, and found both a 550 watt new Antec psu and Evga 6800 Gt were dead. All I knew was mobo had to be dead as I replaced every single hardware device in it a few times over...it had me really puzzled when I picked it up. Now I realize the video card smoked the whole system as all that survived were the cpu and dvd-rw. That's where being there when it all happened would have saved me a lot of time.

 

[rgh]

The card is a 7600GS AGP - if I get a new system it'll take a PCI-E
I'll hold off until I am certain the majority of the components are affected.
The MOBO has a busted clip that holds the chip, the HD is an old 40Gb from another machine, 350W PSU, SL DVD R/W, DVD ROM, TV Tuner, 8X Card Reader - It was all pretty cool 2yrs ago...