system instability with ati radeon 9800 and soyo mobo

[nightprowler126]

hey all
i just built my own pc for the first time. i ordered just about everything from newegg.com except for my ati radeon 9800 and a hard drive.

my specs are:
p4 3.0 ghz
two sticks of 512 corsair ram (total of 1 gig)
samsung 200 gig hd
soyo p4vte motherboard
400W power supply
ati radeon 9800 pro 128mb

i think thats all that i need to tell you guys in terms of specs.
my problem is that my computer just randomly hangs at times. i do not need to be playing a graphics-intense game such as doom 3. i could randomly just have AIM open and be chatting with my friends or just surfing the web and my monitor goes into standby mode, if i have music playing with windows media player, the music stops, and when i press caps lock or num lock on the keyboard, the light does not change showing if its on or off. when i press the restart button on my case, it restarts fine and everything works...until the next time it hangs.
after doing many many hours of research about this problem, ive came to the assumption that my video card is not getting enough juice. the motherboard manual strictly states NOT to use a 3.3v memory card as they are not support and it can do damage to the motherboard or the video card or both. i am not 100% completely sure the ati radeon 9800 is not 3.3v but im think it is not. it does require a power plug coming from the power supply.
one of the reasons i came to the conclusion that it is most likely the lack of power going to the agp slot was when i came to the following site by chance on the soyo motherboard website.
http://www.soyousa.com/kb/kbdesc.php?id=134
it shows my exact problem (system hanging and instability). however, if you notice under products, my p4vte motherboard is not listed. also, i do not have an ati 9700 but i have a 9800. it also does not explain how you can change the agp voltage. i went into the bios but nowhere in there could i find how i could change it. i sent soyo an email about this and asked them where i could do this but i have been waiting a few days now and not received an email. this is getting very frustrating for me as i cannot do any work on my pc without the fear of losing it.
any help is much appreciated.
thank you.

[Cricket]

The ATi 9800 Pro is not a 3.3 volt video card.

What kind of CPU and system temps are you seeing?

What brand is the power supply?

What operating system are you using? And what kind of background programs are running?

The problem could be the motherboard itself. It's generally not recommended to use a VIA chipset with a Intel CPU. And since SOYO motherboards are now made by ECS, might be a quality control problem.

Cricket

[nightprowler126]

hi - thank you for responding to my lengthy post.
anyway, as soon as my system hangs, i go into the bios and go to one part that shows the cpu temp, the chasis temp and the rpms of the fan. the temps of the chasis and cpu are always between 92 and 98 degrees - never more nor never less. i have also read that people say that the video card might over heat. however, if something was to overheat, if i touched it with my fingers, would i feel a great amount of warmth or anything? well, as soon as it hangs, i would completely turn it off and unplug it and touch the card in places and even around the fan and the heat sinks and those arent even warm to the touch.
i do not really know what power supply i have but this is the link from newegg the exact one i got.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...147-001&depa=0
it says rosewill 400w so maybe its a rosewill.
i am currently using winows xp professional with sp2.
besides norton antivirus 2004 pro with aim and ie is all i run sometimes when it crashes.
so what do you suggest i do? is there a way to change the agp voltage? do i need to change some sort of jumper on the motherboard? should i return/just buy another motherboard? any suggestions on what to buy?
thanks again for you help.

[Panama Red]

I'm seeing several possibilities. As Cricket has pointed out, the mobo may be the culprit. Also, Rosewill isn't recognized as a quality psu yet. Don't think we know much about the manufacturing source. Then we have the possible software issues. SP2 has caused various problems with systems and software. Lots of compatibility issues. Norton 2004 is also known to be buggy and a bit of a resource hog. Taking things in a logical order of trial, I'd first uninstall Norton and remove any trace of it from the system. Then install something like AVG free version so you have an anti virus. If that doesn't fix the problem, try shutting down the SP2 firewall. If you still have the problem, replace the power supply with something in the good column from this thread.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=98650

You might want to test your memory just to be sure it's ok too, but I'd think you'd get a STOP ERROR if it was at fault. Then, last resort would be to suspect the motherboard. Good luck.

edit: As an afterthought, I'd try a different vid card before a new mobo.

[nightprowler126]

im am almost positive that it is not the video card that does not work. previously, i had the 9800 running in another computer before this and it was working fine. i am currently at college so im trying to convince one of my roommates to let me borrow his ram sticks for a while to see if the problem persists. if the problem still continues with his memory, then i think i might just buy a new motherboard. any suggestions? my roommate has an asus and i was looking into those the other day. i emailed soyo last thursday about my problem and still have not recieved a response - im about to email them one more time and complain even though that probably wont get me anywhere.
thanks for your help again.