HiSeems to me thats simple overheating prob--Try to operate with open case and put extra fan toward the cardJoseph

Jimmi; good to hear. I still think nvidia adds something to their drivers that sabotages ATI. What a great way to deal with the competition. I'm now running F1 2002 maxed out and man is that ever fun. She just screams and the graphics are awesome.

Hi.Read my post in the PC/MAC Hardware for Simulators.I am planning on buying a new system, and the ATi 9700Pro was the card i was planning.Till i went to rage3d. They actually have a website dedicated to this card, and they call it RAGE3D!!..LOL. Poor marketing!. Buy my card, get enraged! In 3D. Very Nice. Thank you for saving me the aggravation of this card, i will buy Nvidia, Geforce4 Ti4600. Any card that requires(that cant be written in the install instructions, then again)you reinstall your entire Operating System, as many times as it takes to get the card to work. Has some serious design problems. Thks.Take a look at my post. Let me know what you all think of this system I am planning. You already saved me $$$ and grey hair!!..LOLshooterman

I had problems with ATI cards a few years ago - back then it was the RAGE Pro series of cards that they must have given away with virtually every PC built back then. I went to NVIDIA and never looked back. You'd think they'd have got to grips with things by now...

S

I suspect the NV30 will be a nightmare for many too. It's gonna be interesting. Anytime a brand new video card comes out and all these people try to marry it with their $50 motherboards and other cheap components, there's gonna be compatibility problems. If you really look at the forums over there, the vast majority of the problems are with non intel based systems and non intel based chip sets. Many of the problems are being reiterated over and over again by a few folks who just won't give it up.They did a survey on the boards at Rage of motherboards and reported problems. Those with Pentium based systems and the 850 chipset had zero problems last time I checked that survey. I really hesitated too when trying to decide on a video card for my new system. I figured if Alienware and Falcon were pushing the new ATI 9700, all would be fine. And it was. My thinking was, let the experts who do this for a living put the system together with quality and compatible components. And on a system that's never had any nvidia stuff on it. And they did. This coming year is gonna be great for us flightsimmers as far as hardware and choices go. Now, we just need some really good new sims.

mgdbottled,For all I know you could well be right. I take it that unlike me, you are having no problems with the Radeon 9700 Pro. I

No problems whatsoever. Course I didn't build it and I don't mess with anything. hehehe. Here's a couple links: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php...ight=via+p4x400 http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php...readid=33647228 Denis; just do a search under the 9700 tech forum for via p4x400 and there's a bunch of threads discussing the subject. That probably explains the problems you've had. Most of the problems stem from motherboard issues. And in particular the newer 8x boards.

I've had no problem at all with the 9700 Pro that I have.Well besides receiving a defective card at first that did not even work (confirmed by Crucial when I returned the card).In my old system (same components as current system - different motherboard) which had an ABIT KG7-Lite mobo it would take a few attempts for the computer to boot up properly (the monitor would not come on). I put this down (correctly I might add) to the mobo not being able to provide enough juice to the card. Meant I left the computer on for the last two weeks but everything worked fine with the card.Now in my new system (built yesterday)I have no problems at all, the card is stable as ever.PanmanAMD XP2000+ (1.67 Ghz)ABIT AT7-MAX2 moboCrucial Radeon 9700 Pro100 GB HD SpaceM$ Sidewinder FF Pro