new 9800pro but problems with games

[dyengineer8]

Yeah so I got a new 9800 pro the other week and obviously heat was now a problem considering my jump from an nvidia FX 5700 LE to this. So I did the classic take the side panel off and put a fan on it to cool it down (until I get a better ventilated case) and it got rid of my heat issues. Now the problems I have with EVERY game I play (rainbow 6: 3, call of duty, NFS underground2, brothers in arms, HL2 etc...) are that when I get a 1 minute or two into a mission or instance in the actual game it just locks up and I have to reset and ctrl+alt+del won't work or any other key combo. My guess is that my 350 watt power supply isn't keeping up and I'm not sure what company it is because of how old it is. Would a lack of power, when major graphics production kick in, be the problem of my games just locking up and freezing randomly? I mean it still COULD be heat possibly I think but I woulda rather think it was just a lack of power. My other nvidia card didn't require it's own power cord to PSU but obviously this one does. Wouldn't this logically be a lack of power? I would buy a nice antec or enermax 450/500 watt promptly if I knew THAT was the problem. I'm just worried I would buy it and come to the same problems as before. As for drivers I have the newest catalyst 5.4 drivers and my xp prof has SP2. BTW my system is...

-AMD XP 3000+
-MOBO, don't even know(dad built it for me)
-512DDR pc 2700 (2700 i think)
-DVD-RW 8X
-CD-RW 52xread
-80gb HD 8mb buffer
-sound blaster pro
-350 watt PSU
-ATI 9800 pro

 

[diabloII]

don't tell me you didn't completely uninstall the nVidia drivers...

 

[dyengineer8]

i did completely uninstall them (control panel...add or remove programs...nvidia drivers... VAMOOSH)

 

[beedubaya]

That didn't completely uninstall them. In fact, that basically does nothing at all. You have to use a driver cleaner to do it correctly. A format is the best option when moving from ATI to Nvidia.

 

[dyengineer8]

hmm well that will have to be done then, thank you for the info, but about the power supply?

 

[diabloII]

clean it first, then you can worry about your psu

i think it could be found on www.guru3d.com's download section, not sure though

 

[dyengineer8]

hey i got the "nasty file remover" downlaod and it got rid of 2 left over nvidia files and I ran a game for 15 mins or so without any problems so I think its good to go. So thanks a lot for the help guys, I really appreciate it. I'll keep ya updated if it happens again to see if a reformat will do the trick later.