9800 Pro freezing on boot up

AdMMM

I've got a nice and shiny 9800pro resting beside my PC in it's box.

Previously I was using a GeForce 4800Ti, so after I made sure I uninstalled the Forceware drivers, I installed the 9800pro making sure I had screws were tight, molex cable was plugged in etc.

I booted up the PC and it just froze as the login screen was loading up. I had to physically turn the PC off before attempting to reboot again. This time the PC refused to boot up with the monitor's light remaining in the stand by mode, once again I had to physically turn off the PC (hold in the power button for 5 seconds) instead of just pressing the power button once and let Windows shut it down (which shows that Windows wasn't loaded and that the PC had froze). Thinking it might have been installed correctly, I uninstalled it and reinstalled the card. Everything seemed fine but I still got nothing.

I then thought it might have been the PSU, so I plugged out all the non essential drives (FDD, Slave HDD, DVD Writer, DVD Drive) leaving only the Master Drive and the graphics card. Yet again I got nothing (monitor didn't engage, either did Windows) so at this stage I just reinstalled the old 4800 and everything was fine.

The next day I tried it again and this time the monitor initialised and windows began to load up, however once again it froze on the login screen. I tried again and got nothing. I left the PC for about 10 hours and then just turned it on without making any adjustments and it once again loaded up to the login screen before freezing (whereas before, if I turned it on after freezing it wouldn't even engage the monitor). Then I thought about overheating, but I felt around the Heatsink and got nothing and anyway the air being expelled by the fan is cold.

Then I brought the card down to a friends and installed it on 2 PC's and it worked fine!

My PC Specs are:
2000+
1.5gb of ram
1 X 75GB HDD, 1 X 20GB HDD
Floppy Disc Drive
1 X DVD Drive, 1 X DVD Writer
300W PSU
Aopen Ak77nx8 motherboard

I know it's not airflow, I know it's not the card and I know it's not the PSU.

Any suggestions on what it could be? Maybe the monitor?

Wolverine_1999

Might be something silly, but did you plug power into the 9800pro? I am sure those cards next external power source. (Probably the same connector for a floppy drive).

Otherwise, it sounds like there may be some setting in the bios which is causing it to freeze.

The only other thing I can think of is that the PSU is too weak.

Wolverine_1999

Oh can you check your motherboard as well? I can't find anything under that model number.

AdMMM

I mentioned that I had plugged in the (molex) cable for the card, so yeah it has power

I don't the PSU is too weak as I plugged out all the other optical drives on my second or third attempt at installing it.

As for the mobo, it's an Aopen Ak77-8XN

Atlas_IRL

i have the same problem my pc is pretty much the same specs as yours... it kept freezing im pretty sure its my power supply which is only 250w their quite power intensive but a 300w should be enough..

the_syco

Meh. Had a similair problem. Hooked a x700pro up to my PC, and after it ran for a a day and a bit, it froze. on restart, I got the same problems you talk of. I was using a 250W Dell PSU, but I've also tested it with a 400W PSU. It ain't power, and I've no idea what it is

Also had a GeForce4, and tried to put an ATI x700pro. When I gave it back to whom I bought it off, he said it worked, no hassle yet.

I also had tried it on a seperate test machine, same symptons, except it ran for a bit on the Dell, but not at all on the test machine.

There is one thing that was the same in both instances, was that both motherboards were 478 socket. Was yours a socket 478 mobo? If so, that may be the connection.

angelofdeath

start up in safe mode (with your old card if you have to), run driver cleaner see if that helps any