[gossen19]

System setup: AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Kingston DDR 400mhz pc3200 512mb
Maxtor 160GB IDE
350W Q-Tec Low noise PSU.
MSI K8T Neo2 Fire S939

When I used an ATI Radeon 9800SE with a ordinary 4-pin molex connector as the one used to supply power to a IDE hardrive I hade an uptime in about 15-20 minutes before the monitor status light starts blinking yellow and screen goes off. The computer is still running when this happends but screen goes off and I must unplug the power cord to the monitor and restart the computer. I have tried an TFT monitor without any result.

But when I changed to a ATI Radeon 9700 Pro which only uses a small type Molex connector, looks like the one used for power supplying floppy drives I got an significant increased uptime. The uptime increased to 1-3 hours.

May this be a problem of the PSU beeing to weak? Or may the AGP slot be broken on the motherboard?

Thanks in advance.

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I must add that I´ve tried increasing the power to the CPU by 5,5% without success.

Tried increasing AGP voltage by 4-6% without success.
I`ve tried changing RAM Frequencys without success.

[gossen19]

I must add that I´ve tried increasing the power to the CPU by 5,5% without success.

Tried increasing AGP voltage by 4-6% without success.
I`ve tried changing RAM Frequencys without success.

[Samm]

Firstly, I wouldn't go increasing the voltages of the agp bus or the RAM frequencies, OK. This isn't gonna be the cause of the problem, assuming that the agp settings are correct to start with & the radeon card is fully supported by the system. Plus you may end up damaging other components.

Secondly, 350W PSU is not powerful enough for your system. The radeon card draws power straight from the PSU via the molex connector. The voltages probably aren't the problem but I suspect the PSU isn't supplying enough current for your card to work correctly.

I would recommend you buy a good quality PSU, at least 450-500W. Even if it turns out not to be the cause of the problem in this case, you would be wise to invest in a better PSU anyway, as 350W just isn't enough.

When you go to choose a new PSU, check what the continuous power output is. The rating given by most manufacturers refers to the peak power output, not the average or continuous output. If your PSU is rated at 350W, the actual sustained output is more likely to be about 2/3 to 3/4 of that.