My best friend has a 9800XT and we were wondering what you guys think.

Everytime it starts up, well it sounds like a saw. Sometimes the screen will go blank before windows and we have to reboot.

Is it on its way out?

fan?

The only moving part on the card that I can think of is the fan. If its failing (which it sounds like it is), you are probably overheating the card, which might explain the crashes.

Power down and unplug the computer.
Check to see if any cables have fallen and are resting on the fan. If not, remove the card and blow any dust/debris from the fan area. Will the fan spin smoothly if you spin it with your finger?

Plug it back in and fire it up. See if that solves your problem. If your still getting the noise you may need to replace the fan.

Yep I agree with the preecher, clear it away, clean it out, and see if that helps.

Replacing the fan is easy if it's dying, but maybe not worth it for such an aging card, depends the cost of replacement.

It's probably the fan; cleaning it out like everyone else said might help.

You also might want to consider getting a new GPU

I just suggest a new GPU if he doesn't want an overall system rebuild.

For him he has a AGP 8x so here is a card that will drastically imrpove performance over what he has now:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applica [...] ICEGRABBER

I am sure you can find a better price but thats one nice card really.

Don't get me wrong though. I loved my 9800XT to death until someone stole it from my car..... dam dirty theifs...

Alright, we cleaned it out(it was rather dusty) but that didn't fix the problem. It did not make any noise when we manually spun it so we are confused. He would just get a better GPU, but he has a shuttle and it only has a 250 w psu which wont cut it for that card. I tryed to give him my old X800 XT, but it wont fit. We are in a bind, he wants a new comp, but I don't think he has the money for it.

This would be the absolute fastest GPU you could put into an AGP slot (that I am aware of). Your friend's PSU cannot handle it:
SAPPHIRE 100228L Radeon HD 3850 512MB

This card would be a good price/performance compromise as far as AGP cards go. Your friend's PSU should be able to run it provided that the 12V rail is strong enough:
HIS Hightech H26XF512ANP Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB *Edit* Nevermind, that card apparently has issues.

In all honesty I would recommend that your friend just save up for a new computer. AGP is dead

IMO get an X1600 series card on AGP, as long as it's not an X1650XT it should be fine on the PSU side of the equation and then give you support for SM3.0 in the process.

An HD2400Pro should also be within your power envelope;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102734

While these are not the best parts, for what you're trying to do I think these are your only realistic options.

You could of course replace the fan, but that needs you to be confident in your termal grease and plastic clip removal replacement abilities.

Edit - Even though I like that HD26000 i don't think he could run an HD2600Pro on that rig let alone XT, but if he could it'd be a sweet add on. If he has a local supplier with a good return policy it may be worth the effort of trying it out.

True about the PSU, but the HD2600 is pretty light on power consumption, so it might work...

I'll go out on a limb here and state that if the PSU could run an X800XT (questionable, but he OP seems to think so), it could handle an HD2600XT. Power figures on the X800XT are hard to find though, so I can't really back that statement up. It's more like an educated guess/assumption.

I think the 9800xt's had a pretty high power consumptions, as well.

Most likely, the reason it made no noise when you manually spun the fan is it doesn't get "wobbily" until it is going really fast.

The x1650 series of cards will give similar (a little better...) performance as the 9800xt did and the PSU should be able to handle it. I am not sure what CPU he has, but most likely anything higher than a 2600 series card would be overkill. Since it isn't a card you would bring to a new PC (because it is AGP), I wouldn't spend a lot of $$$. You could even go as far as searching ebay for another 9800 series card, or even a nvidia 6600/7600 series card. I bet if you looked hard enough on Ebay, you could find one for $20-$30.

Yeah, it's iffy, I'm not sure about the X800XT as it was truly a power hungry animal, and while the R9800XT was pretty power hungry too, I would say it is that extra step.

The HD2600 is probably within that envelope of the X800XT, but once again that is a guess, remember the X800XL was on that fine line for PCIe where it was with/without an external connector, but on AGP required the extra power, so that XL would be just under the 75W draw mark, whereas the 800XT required power in addition to the PCIe slot. So the X800XT would definitely require more than an R9800XT.

Here's the power draw figures I pulled from Xbit Labs;

X800 series;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

X1600 series;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] 006_7.html

HD2600XT;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

So just about the same as an X800XL for all three (X1600XT not pro) not that much more for an HD2600 apparently ~5W, which is a bit surprising. The more surprising thing is the high power draw of the GF6600GT as much as an X800XL or HD2600XT.

Now the question is how well does that PSU of his handle that power.

So X-bit Labs gives us the power draw of the cards alone? Very nice!

If this were a newer 250W PSU it would probably work, but given its age I doubt that it has the 12V strength to run a modern GPU safely, even a power-sipping HD2600.

Oh, and I just read the user reviews of that HIS HD2600Xt that I recommended above...not good. I will retract that recommendation.

Do what I did with my 9700 pro when it died.

Step 1: Remove old fan from heatsink
Step 2: Strap a 80mm fan to the side of it with zip ties.

Done!

FYI, that card still lives. Currently resides in my file storage box. Running strong for 7 years now. I gamed on it untill last fall. Ahh, the golden years for ATI....

I sold my 9500 pro to my buddy for a few meals at taco bell during lunch break. it still serves him good on WoW to this day.