Desktop won't start at all, some advice needed.

[foycur]

AS far as the BIOS on the 9800, it's the original as best I can tell you. I have never tried to update the BIOS on it, I didn't even know you could. All seems to be going well though. My next system will be an Athlon XP/nVidia rig.

 

[Sharam]

It is true with some motherboards and /or chipsets in regards to filling up all sockets with DDR400! If your modules are compatible, all you need to do is, remove one module to find out.

A monitor can affect your card’s performance only with response time, refresh rate and such, but it should not give you stability problems.

I have a 9700 non pro that I have flashed with a 9700Pro BIOS. Not suggesting you to follow, just to answer your question. You have to know which card you can push.

Here is an example techPowerUp! ATI Bios Collection if you click on advance, you get to edit your BIOS.

Well, it seems like things are OK!

You never did tell us if there are any visual differences with the Dual 12V rail power supplies

 

[foycur]

I can't tell much with the visual differences, in part because I think my monitor is about six years old. It's an old MAG CRT monitor, but the system has definitely been running more stable. This new power supply is much quieter too. My wife used to hate the old one because it sounded like a helicopter taking off.

My CPU temp is running about 35 C at idle and hits 50 C when playing games, it's never gone above 50 C according to my ASUS probe that I run in the background.

I went to the website that you suggested and found another program called ATITool. I bumped up the core speed and memory a bit, tested it out for stability, and then ran 3DMark03. my score went from 5900 to over 6300. I'm afraid to flash the BIOS on the card because I'm scared that it'll go kaput. What is the advantage of flashing to a more recent BIOS vs. just using ATITool? I like being able to set it back to the default speeds with the touch of a button.

I really think the issue was my RAM occupying all those slots. A shame, since now I have 100 bucks of RAM just sitting around. If I continue to accumulate parts, I could build another whole system! I haven't put it back in because work has been crazy.

So far so good, thanks for asking!

 

[Sharam]

I was talking about the power supply (visual differences, dual12V and single 12V rail), I am assuming there are no distinctive differences or you would have already said something.

In the ATI Tool you can create a profile with your stock speed and click on load or assign a hot key to it.

I just provided the link so you know it is possible to flash or update firmware on practically any component that has one and is flashable. (since you said you didn't know, sometimes they do provide updates but here we are talking about turning a 9700 to a 9700Pro or a 9800Pro to a 9800XT, there is a difference)

I turned my 9700 non pro to a 9700Pro by using a BIOS for 9700Pro, You already have the 9800Pro, if you have the 256MB DDRII type, you could turn it in to a 9800XT (it already is an XT but with some features turned off.)
Here is a quick read if you have time, I just searched for it and don’t know anything about the site, proceed with caution!

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=92&var2=0