I came to the same conclusion that you did. I returned the card and got a 
8800gts that was still pcie x16. It works perfectly. From what I read it's 
the same card as the 9800gt only not 2.0.
Thanks for replying John.

jimi
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Sproule" <[log in to unmask]>hanks
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] trouble installing video card


>I don't know if this is the same situation, but I ran into similar
> difficulties when I tried to upgrade my system with a 8800GT video card.
> Turns out that the 8800GT's backward compatibility with PCI-E v1.1 didn't
> really work with the motherboard that I was using (an Asrock 775Dual 
> VSTA).
> I ended up upgrading the motherboard in my system in order to use the new
> video card, though after the fact, EVGA made available a new firmware that
> apparently fixed this issue.  As far as I know all subsequent 8800GTs
> included this firmware fix.
>
> In any case, this sounds like a compatibility issue between a relatively 
> new
> video card and an older motherboard.  While the card should provide the
> backward compatibility to work with any PCI-E video card slot, this 
> doesn't
> always seem to be the case.  All you can do to try to confirm this is to
> throw out a wider net with Google and see what you can come up with.  I'd
> search for anything to do with 9800GTs and motherboard compatibility 
> issues,
> and I'd see if I could figure out what manufacturer and chipset the 
> Gateway
> was using, in order to see if any issues match up with your system setup.
>
> John Sproule
>
> ------------- Original Message Below -------------
>
>
> Date:    Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:42:59 -0500
> From:    jimi moore <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: trouble installing video card
>
> I'm trying to install an xfx 9800gt into my sons gateway machine model
> #825gm. It won't boot...just a black screen. We get the one short beep 
> code
> saying all is good then it just repeats over and over.
> The MB does not have an integrated video chip. It came with a ati card.
> I have a OCZ gamestream 700 watt PS. Not sure of the amps but I know this 
> is
> well above the requirements for the 9800 gt.
> We have uninstalled all previous vid drivers.
> It has a pcie slot that we've been running a evga 7950 for 2+ years but 
> that
> card has burned out. We put the preinstalled card, a ati radeon x300 SE 
> back
> in and it works fine. We tried the 9800 in my hp  machine and it worked
> perfect.
> We updated the bios to the august 2008 version. We did a update for the
> chipset from 2008. Neither gateway or xfx can figure it out. Can anybody
> here please
> help?
>
> thanks,
>
> jimi
>
>                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>


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