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Is the 9800 Pro powerhungry?

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Breadfan

Inactive Moderator
Joined
Jan 4, 2001
Location
Northern VA
I just got a refurbed 9800 pro 256mb from Newegg, and installing it last night it caused some bad random rebooting. The problem went away when I unplugged some of my other stuff, and it ran all night looping some of the 3d demo's Ati has.

I'm assuming it's a power problem.

I have a 350w Sparkle (Fortron), which as many know about Fortrons, is conservatively rated. Never had any power problems in the past, until putting this card in. Before I was running an ASUS ti4200 oc'ed to 4600 speeds.

Anyway just wondering if the 9800 pro is power hungry. I guess I finally reached the limits of my Sparkle unit. (Funny, never thought that would happen!)

So I'll probably be PSU shopping, as for now I'm leaving my CD burner and a 92mm fan unhooked. Just wanted some input to see how many others have had similar problems.
 
i had that too with my 9800pro 128mb, after some time it also showed artifacts (without warning, sometimes at bootup, sometimes never) i RMA'd the card and the store tested it, and told me the card was broken..


edit: the new card (sapphire 9800pro 128mb) doesnt give me these problems :)
 
just be sure that the card has a direct connection to the PSU, not wired through a bunch of other stuff
 
Ok, well, I might have to buy a PSU in town then (and get ripped off) if I want to make sure this card works. It's a newegg refurb so I got 15 days to deicde to keep it...

It's running fine now, I'll fire some games up this weekend, try to get a new PSU and put the rest of my stuff in....and see how it goes.
 
Not sure if the fortons 350 have the hidden adjustable pots, but if they do, try adjusting the +12.

I had some issues with my 9800 Pro with the reboots, found that the TT 420's have hidden adjustable pots and raised the +12 so that it is stable at 12.25v's when the 9800 Pro is plugged in. Have not had any issues since raising the +12 and still have all my other IDE devices installed.

Just a thought before buying a crappy PSU locally.
 
Ive found that my voltage rails are better with my 6800GT then they were with my 9800PRO:eek:....so yea, they draw alot of power.
 
In a word, yes they are power hungry... just like the 9700pro. If you have a bunch of drives and fans and are using a bunch of volts on an overclock, a 9800pro will beat your system to death..... I love my Fortron 530w and it has proven to withstand the beast. I have a TTGI 550 I used before and the 9800pro kicked the snot out of it. I had to ease up on the overclock to get my system stable using that psu and videocard.
 
yep it's definitely the PSU. And also take it from a computer engineer, DO NOT go opening up any psu's unless you know exactly what you are doing. These things can kill you even if they are not plugged in. I would say just get a new psu and make it an overkill, that way you will not need to upgrade it for a long while.
 
HousERaT said:
interesting article Coltice.... thanks.... I wonder how valid those specs are? I've been trying to find out how much watts my card used up with no luck at all. Makes me wonder whether my card is using up the power of a pro or xt since I flashed it to an xt?
thats a pretty good question and I don't know the answer.If I was going to assume(which I don't like to do)I would guess the power of the xt due the higher clocks at boot.to be honest someone else turned me on to the article but they also had some info from the ATI knowledge base to back it up.
 
I can attest to the fact the a 9800Pro flashed to a 9800Xt uses more power. Hell going from a 9600pro used more power. My APC UPS is able to tell me roughly what my power usage is. With my 9600Pro I would use about 200-210watts of power. With the current system in my sig I use about 294-300watts of power. There is a degree of error but this just to show how much more power a 9800XT or pro needs over a mid range card like the 9600.
 
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