Hi Wadtroem,
Not wanting to offend, but have you plugged the power into the 9800 Pro Molex connector?
I've also encountered boot problems (i.e no boot) originating from the AGP aperture selection. I can't remember which size, but it's either 64 or 128Mb that you have to use whilst playing around with bios configurations or it just won't boot. Set the AGP aperture size as your final change after everything else is stable. However 64 or 128MB should be sufficient anyway. I would suggest that you start with the default / failsafe bios configuration and work from there making no more that a few changes at at time to ensure stability after each step. Starting with 'Optimal' may also be OK as well. Also use just one or two sticks of DDR to eliminate any memory errors and max out your memory slots after you are happy with your bios configuration. Similarly add your PCI graphics card after all else is good with AGP graphics and this will give you the opportunity to resolve any IRQ conflicts that might arise.
Choosing one of two graphics cards for different games is unknown territory for me. I'm not sure if that's do-able but I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Best of luck.

Capsndave wrote on 2026-06-15, 15:16:

Hi Wadtroem, Not wanting to offend, but have you plugged the power into the 9800 Pro Molex connector? I've also encountered boo […]
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Hi Wadtroem,
Not wanting to offend, but have you plugged the power into the 9800 Pro Molex connector?
I've also encountered boot problems (i.e no boot) originating from the AGP aperture selection. I can't remember which size, but it's either 64 or 128Mb that you have to use whilst playing around with bios configurations or it just won't boot. Set the AGP aperture size as your final change after everything else is stable. However 64 or 128MB should be sufficient anyway. I would suggest that you start with the default / failsafe bios configuration and work from there making no more that a few changes at at time to ensure stability after each step. Starting with 'Optimal' may also be OK as well. Also use just one or two sticks of DDR to eliminate any memory errors and max out your memory slots after you are happy with your bios configuration. Similarly add your PCI graphics card after all else is good with AGP graphics and this will give you the opportunity to resolve any IRQ conflicts that might arise.
Choosing one of two graphics cards for different games is unknown territory for me. I'm not sure if that's do-able but I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Best of luck.

Hi yes I plugged the molex in. I've tried different configs with both the PCI and AGP card and noticed just trying to boot with ONLY the AGP won't work. PCI gpu only works. I raised aperture selection to 256 from auto I believe, but I can try to lower it again. Yeah I'm probably will try to find a new set of sticks (x2 1GB), but for now I'd just want to be able to boot with the AGP gpu in someway.

It seems to not boot when I'm using any of the different PCI slots, so it boots only with PCI gpu + 1 stick of ram.

Further testing shows that perhaps my soundcard (audigy 2z) is borked because the I get no POST with it plugged in. I've tried all PCI ports, though it worked yesterday in one of them - I even managed to install XP with it connected. Today I tried to boot with it plugged in overnight and no POST. Removed it -> POST successful. I found this thread with similiar issue: Audigy 2ZS Prevents Post

Secondly, I've tried different AGP cards mainly my Geforce2 GTS 4x agp which booted instantly -> the agp slot isnt borked atleast!! I'm now afraid that my 9800pro which worked before is now.. dead?
Though, in the bios the max agp rate selectable is 4x, not 8x. I have no idea why 8x isnt showing in those settings. Could that explain the 9800 not booting?

I was having eerily similar problems with my Asrock 4CoreDual-Sata2, inconsistent ability to even POST with different video cards. Turned out to be the CPU after trying different RAM, GPUs, PSU and even BIOS versions.