ATI radeon boot error message

every once in a while my computer won't reboot and I get this error message in a red box.
"You have not connected the power extension cable to your radeon 9800, please see the getting started guide for correct hardware installation!!!"

The card is seated correctly and the power cable is tightly pushed in to the card. How come I get this message? It only happens every once in a while. Is my psu not powerful enough? Is my card going? Is it because I flashed the bios(although I am pretty sure it did it before)?

The problem only seems to be a problem when rebooting, not cold booting.
The only way to fix it(temporarily) is the unplug the power cable from the psu and flip off the switch and wait about 5 minutes.

I started having the exact same problem with the power cable not connected error message. Except for me, it happens on cold boot and even when resetting -- same thing happens. So basically i guess my video card has died on me. The molex power connector is very hot when i touch it after turning off the system too, and the heatsink is SMOKING hot so i guess my video card is totally screwed... Oh well.... at least yours still works but i guess im gonna get a x800 xt ... was thinking about maybe the All in wonder version but not sure if that comes with the 1.6ns GDDR3 memory. Anyone know?

it might be your power supply. i had the same problem with my 2nd gaming rig. originally i thought my conneciton was loose on the 9800pro. so i changed to another Y-cable, but the problem still exist. i thought my 9800pro was bad, so i replaced with another 9800. after a while, the same problem popped up again. finally i replaced my ps with another ps, then the problem went away.

you should change your power supply to see if that's causing the problem.