Radeon 9800 Pro (128MB) on G4 with lots of artifacts

Hi. I had the same problem, but it was a 500 mhz Sawtooth. I was told it was either a power issue or a heat issue. So I upgraded the power supply from 237 watts to 400 watts. It seemed to help, but it started doing the same thing. After wasting a lot of time and money with power supplies and soldering and adding fans, etc, I looked at the fan on the card. Like you, I bought mine used. The guy said it worked flawlessly. When I first got it and experienced the problems, I checked the fan. It wasn't the stock fan, was a unit from Arctic Cooling. The fan was spinning, but it said that air should be blown out the exhaust, and I felt none. Upon closer inspection it turned out that the fan was defective. It was constantly speeding up/slowing down, and it was supposed to be a single speed fan...not good. But by the time I figured that out, the card had been fried. I got a new unit from Arctic Cooling, but the card no longer works.

Might want to check the fan and make sure it's spinning. Your power supply should be sufficient since I believe the QS's had 344 watt PSU's.

One thing I forgot to mention was that underclocking it usually helped. I had to underclock it a good amount, though. I believe it was around 20%.

Hope this helps.

Matt

Hi,
If you've downclocked it and it still artifacts, heat may be your culprit.
But first, did you contact the Fleabay seller and complain?

As mentioned, heat will kill a video card. If you have a temp monitor, test the card between the fansink and chip. There is always the 'burn your finger' test too, if it's so hot that when you touch the fansink it burns your finger - it's too hot: but I didn't say to do that.....

The remedy for heat on a video card is a better fan, the one by Artic Cooling is good - but it's BIG. There is also a Zalman VF700 that works very well too.

Regards,
Dave

Are you sure it is a true apple ati card or is it badly flashed pc ati card converted to mac?

It is is flashed and not done correctly (ie meaning you have to replace the 64k rom with a 128k rom) the card will have lots of issues.

Hi,
The best way that I know of to check what type of card you have is to lookup the P/N.
You do that by going to ATI.com>Customer Care> Support for:Radeon PC/Mac>Knowledge base>Product Info>737-1385: Identifying a Product by Physical Inspection>scroll down the page until you find "102 lookup Form> ", click on that >then type in your cards P/N. The answer will tell you if it is a Mac Edition or a PC version.

If you find out it was a PC version that was flashed, I'd REALLY call the Seller up and complain! If not, and it's a Mac Edition, get ATI to warranty it, get another new one. Do you mind telling me what the Seller's name is? Inquiring minds and all......

Regards,
Dave

Hi Mat!
"... So I upgraded the power supply from 237 watts to 400 watts!..."

I would very much like to know about your experience with the psu change. I also have a Sawtooth G4 500MHz upgraded to a 1.5GHz Mercury Extreme chip and the 9800 Pro card with 128 MB! I am looking for a 400W PSU, or so, that can be adapted to my system! What do you recommend?
Some advice would be much appreciated, regarding purchasing a new power supply. I don't want to push my luck keeping the old PSU which is just a little over 200W!

Thanks!

Powermac G4 500MHz- upped to 1.5 GHz AGP Sawtooth Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2 GB RAM and ATI 9800Pro 128 MB card

You have to make 2 wire / pin changes on a normal PC psu to make it into a mac psu. Xceler8yourmac has a good picture of the process.

The other issue I believe is the size of the psu in regards to the amount of space in the G4 tower.