I have two bad ones. One will do massive artifacts and the other just won't POST. So nothing driver related.

I woldn't jump to any conclusions just yet. Don't forget that you are trying to run a 2003 video card on a 1998 platform (and... not exactly the best 1998 platform either). So... a 5 year gap in a time where many components were all but obsolete one year after they launched. 😁
Furthermore, a Radeon 9800 PRO is completely wasted even on a Thunderbird / Tualatin 1.4 GHz system... so using it with a K6-2, while being an interesting experiment just to see "what if", is not something that you can/should ever expect to actually work. 😁
If you really want to make sure that the card is not faulty, test it on a newer platform (something like an Athlon XP / Pentium 4 / Athlon 64 or even a Core 2 Duo).

That being said, Radeon 9700/9800 PRO cards do tend to fail because of overheating (+ the GPU shim situation). So a new(er) card/one that has had less hours of actual use is more likely to still be alive. 😀

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-27, 07:59:

Right after ordering my 9800 pro I began talking to you guys about it and like everyone I talked to said their card was bad in s […]
Show full quote

Right after ordering my 9800 pro I began talking to you guys about it and like everyone I talked to said their card was bad in some way or another.

Mine seemed to be fine though, displays fine, no artifacts, good image, etc.

Well I got mine for a totally new build, (all new parts, all new bugs. As you all know, debugging a all new hardware, all used hardware, no known good parts build is quite an adventure. And to compound things, For a long time this was my only agp card.

I’ve recently come to think that a random crashing issue I’ve been attributing to the motherboard (something that I wouldn’t normally immediately suspect the video card for) may actually be the 9800 pro.

Well now that I have spare agp video cards I decided to test the theory.

It’s rock stable now. Something about the windows drivers for this card or the 9800 pro it’s self is causing random crashes

I’m running a asus p5a, windows XP, k6 3+, etc.

Is there a specific driver I should be using for the best 586 ali aladdin V support? Or is there something wrong with the cards themselves that I could look for, maybe fix?

Try forcing AGP 1x . That fixed it for me on a 440BX board with a 9700 . [SOLVED, fixed by forcing AGP 1X] De-shimmed Radeon 9700 on 440BX crashes Windows 98 SE running 3DMARK 2003

darry wrote on 2021-12-27, 15:35:

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-27, 07:59:

Right after ordering my 9800 pro I began talking to you guys about it and like everyone I talked to said their card was bad in s […]
Show full quote

Right after ordering my 9800 pro I began talking to you guys about it and like everyone I talked to said their card was bad in some way or another.

Mine seemed to be fine though, displays fine, no artifacts, good image, etc.

Well I got mine for a totally new build, (all new parts, all new bugs. As you all know, debugging a all new hardware, all used hardware, no known good parts build is quite an adventure. And to compound things, For a long time this was my only agp card.

I’ve recently come to think that a random crashing issue I’ve been attributing to the motherboard (something that I wouldn’t normally immediately suspect the video card for) may actually be the 9800 pro.

Well now that I have spare agp video cards I decided to test the theory.

It’s rock stable now. Something about the windows drivers for this card or the 9800 pro it’s self is causing random crashes

I’m running a asus p5a, windows XP, k6 3+, etc.

Is there a specific driver I should be using for the best 586 ali aladdin V support? Or is there something wrong with the cards themselves that I could look for, maybe fix?

Try forcing AGP 1x . That fixed it for me on a 440BX board with a 9700 . [SOLVED, fixed by forcing AGP 1X] De-shimmed Radeon 9700 on 440BX crashes Windows 98 SE running 3DMARK 2003

I already am doing this

i just looked up a pic of a asus p5a looks like it has a agp slot that is keyed for 3.3V?

i read some post that claim even though some radeon 9800 pro have the 3.3v keying that they won't work right in a board that is only doing 3.3v. when looking into it only the 128mb versions of 9800 pros have the 3.3v keying and the later 256mb versions dropped the 3.3v keying as did the more powerful xt versions of the 9800

from what some people said on this forum and a few others when i was reading into it they claim 9700 pro were the last ati cards to fully support 3.3v

so that could be why its not working?

aaron158 wrote on 2021-12-28, 03:43:

i just looked up a pic of a asus p5a looks like it has a agp slot that is keyed for 3.3V? […]
Show full quote

i just looked up a pic of a asus p5a looks like it has a agp slot that is keyed for 3.3V?

i read some post that claim even though some radeon 9800 pro have the 3.3v keying that they won't work right in a board that is only doing 3.3v. when looking into it only the 128mb versions of 9800 pros have the 3.3v keying and the later 256mb versions dropped the 3.3v keying as did the more powerful xt versions of the 9800

from what some people said on this forum and a few others when i was reading into it they claim 9700 pro were the last ati cards to fully support 3.3v

so that could be why its not working?

Good theory! 🤔

I don’t have a 1.5v slot to test it with though.

Guess I’ll just have to shelve it for a while.

Maybe could try a 9700 if I find one cheap

I have had very good luck with 9800 pros, I have picked up 3 of them and all 3 have worked no problems. 9700s now those I have had bad luck, 3 out of 5 of the 9700s I have gotten have been bad but I have been refunded for those.

AFAIK the 9700s had the shim problem but they had fixed it mostly by the time the 9800s came out.

ATI Radeon 9700Pro vs 9800Pro in that thread

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2019-01-31, 03:33:

Both Radeon 9700 and 9800 suffer from BGA RAM failures. That's just my speculation, but only Samsung-based cards are affected the most. Infineon/Hynix cards are relatively safe to use.

for which I would tend to agree from my observation as the cards I have that are bad are all Samsung-based cards which is a pity. Not all my Samsung based cards are dead but all of my cards that are non Samsung are working perfectly.

I did a quick check and all 3 of my 9800 pros have Hynix memory and all 3 of my dead 9700s have Samsung with only one 9700 that has working Samsung memory is a 9700 pro and the other one has Infineon. Both of my FireGL X1-128s have Samsung memory and are working perfectly so.....

edit: when I say dead I mean hard core artifacting

Grem Five wrote on 2021-12-29, 23:43:

AFAIK the 9700s had the shim problem but they had fixed it mostly by the time the 9800s came out.

Actually, problem persisted up to and including X800 series. They just redesigned coolers starting with 9800Pro.
Just this week I got faulty 9700XT, which I didn't realy expect (Dell workstation card, lower clocks ... etc.)
Infineon 3.6ns BGA chips were commonly found ond 9500 Pro/non-Pro and 9700 non-Pro. Cool running chips, but not very oveclocking friendly. Hynix were better.

Sphere478 wrote on 2021-12-28, 04:22:

Maybe could try a 9700 if I find one cheap

Just go for FireGL X1-128 😉. 9700Pro specs, a lot cheaper and fewer hours on them.

stef80 wrote on 2021-12-29, 23:54:

Actually, problem persisted up to and including X800 series. They just redesigned coolers starting with 9800Pro. Just this week […]
Show full quote

Grem Five wrote on 2021-12-29, 23:43:

AFAIK the 9700s had the shim problem but they had fixed it mostly by the time the 9800s came out.

Actually, problem persisted up to and including X800 series. They just redesigned coolers starting with 9800Pro.
Just this week I got faulty 9700XT, which I didn't realy expect (Dell workstation card, lower clocks ... etc.)
Infineon 3.6ns BGA chips were commonly found ond 9500 Pro/non-Pro and 9700 non-Pro. Cool running chips, but not very oveclocking friendly. Hynix were better.

You mean 9700TX.... clock and core speed of 263 with the infineon 3.6 chips. Thats one of the 9700s I mentioned that was working and yes best she can do it clock up to a 9700 non pro. Core has no problem going higher but that memory is not very good but it is working unlike most of my Samsung cards.

Coolers on the 9700 & 9800 are barely adequate but my x800XL I have had since new and no problems there but it was a sapphire brand and one reason i got it is because it came with a zalman cooler on it stock. https://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/sapphirex800xlu/

Sorry, yes ... TX (as in Texas). I presume they had to downclock it a bit just to differentiate.
I did some testing while ago, 9700 non-Pro/9700 TX with core clock of about 340MHz is as fast as 9700Pro. Memory bandwith is not an issue with 256-bit bus.

Grem Five wrote on 2021-12-29, 23:43:

I have had very good luck with 9800 pros, I have picked up 3 of them and all 3 have worked no problems. 9700s now those I have h […]
Show full quote

I have had very good luck with 9800 pros, I have picked up 3 of them and all 3 have worked no problems. 9700s now those I have had bad luck, 3 out of 5 of the 9700s I have gotten have been bad but I have been refunded for those.

AFAIK the 9700s had the shim problem but they had fixed it mostly by the time the 9800s came out.

ATI Radeon 9700Pro vs 9800Pro in that thread

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2019-01-31, 03:33:

Both Radeon 9700 and 9800 suffer from BGA RAM failures. That's just my speculation, but only Samsung-based cards are affected the most. Infineon/Hynix cards are relatively safe to use.

for which I would tend to agree from my observation as the cards I have that are bad are all Samsung-based cards which is a pity. Not all my Samsung based cards are dead but all of my cards that are non Samsung are working perfectly.

I did a quick check and all 3 of my 9800 pros have Hynix memory and all 3 of my dead 9700s have Samsung with only one 9700 that has working Samsung memory is a 9700 pro and the other one has Infineon. Both of my FireGL X1-128s have Samsung memory and are working perfectly so.....

edit: when I say dead I mean hard core artifacting

My 9800 pro has Samsung memory

But no artifacts.

It just randomly locks up or reboots.

I have never tried running my 9700s or 9800s on anything slower than a Thunderbird / Tualatin 1.4 GHz system and as Bloodem said even on those systems it is kinda wasted as the CPUs are the bottlenecks. I can say they work fines in motherboards I have for those but no idea about an ali aladdin V based system.

ATI drivers were always a bit finicky at times and when I think it could be them I always try a set of Omega drivers to see how they work on those. You can check out https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/radeon-o … vers-2-5-9.html I have to put a disclaimer I have not checked out the download on that page personally but never had problems getting stuff from guru3d. Philscomputerlab.com has omega drivers on his site as well, I trust his site and never had problems.

@Sphere478
You can check this tread: ALI Chipset vs AGP Card - K6-2 Commate S7AX
It may be chipset/BIOS settings issue.

Grem Five wrote on 2021-12-30, 00:52:

I have never tried running my 9700s or 9800s on anything slower than a Thunderbird / Tualatin 1.4 GHz system and as Bloodem said even on those systems it is kinda wasted as the CPUs are the bottlenecks. I can say they work fines in motherboards I have for those but no idea about an ali aladdin V based system.

ATI drivers were always a bit finicky at times and when I think it could be them I always try a set of Omega drivers to see how they work on those. You can check out https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/radeon-o … vers-2-5-9.html I have to put a disclaimer I have not checked out the download on that page personally but never had problems getting stuff from guru3d. Philscomputerlab.com has omega drivers on his site as well, I trust his site and never had problems.

It’s not entirely true though.

On my 9800 when it works halo is choppy but playable, but what’s interesting is that it’s basically equally as choppy at ALL resolutions even max res with full aa asf etc 🤣 so halo is lookin pretty good even if it’s 15-20 fps 🤣 my other cards can’t do that.

stef80 wrote on 2021-12-30, 01:08:

@Sphere478
You can check this tread: ALI Chipset vs AGP Card - K6-2 Commate S7AX
It may be chipset/BIOS settings issue.

Okay lemme look

I just got one of these, and the system POST was flaky. It worked at first, then stopped at the ECSD/system report update screen. I never got to Windows.