I have a P4S600 with a 2.8 gig HT cpu, 1 Gig Ram, 450 watt ps and
a radeon 9800xt. If I run it in 8x agp mode system crashes, in 4x
agp mode runs great any ideas why??
Is there an adjustment for AGP voltage ? Maybe a slight boost will
help make 8X work. You might also want to monitor the +12V operating
voltage with the hardware monitor chip. Use either MBM5 or Asus Probe
(not both at the same time, as they fight with one another over
the SMBUS), you can log voltages to a text file while you run some
benchmarks. Even though your power supply is 450W, it is the current
rating printed on the side of the supply that counts.
For a lesser video card, I'd recommend 12V@15A as the rating on the +12V.
With the ATI9800, you would be looking at closer to 12V@20A as a safe
rating. This is on the assumption that the power the card is drawing
is all coming from the separate +12V cable that plugs into the card.
But don't run out and purchase another power supply, until you've
logged the voltages using MBM5, while running a demanding video game.
If the +12V is much less than +11.4 (5% tolerance), then you might
think about getting a supply with more +12V output.
If your motherboard doesn't have an adjustment for AGP voltage,
then I guess the options at that point are pretty expensive, no
matter what you do.
HTH,
Paul
