Very poor 3dmark03 benchmark score?

I have a p4 3ghz, 512mb, ati rs400 motherboard with onboard radeon xpress and ac97, and a new inno3d 7900gt card.

When I fitted the card there was a sizeable improvement in the graphics but there was a nagging feeling that they could be better.

Anyway, yesterday I put the system through it's paces with 3dmark03 and the score result was a paltry 6887. I compared this to other comparable systems and they were getting between 15000 and 20000!

I disabled my pci usb card to give the 7900gt a whole IRQ and even took the usb pci out but to no avail.

There seems to be something seriously wrong. The actual 7900gt card doesn't seat completely square in the pci-e slot, being about 2 mm or so higher at one end. Although this doesn't stop the card from apparently working. Also one or two of the gold pci-e connectors on the card seem to be half the length, is this normal? They don't look like they broke off but...

Stupidly I overclocked the card with coolbits on the second day so my warranty is history.

My psu is 350watt 18 amp, which I know is the bare minimum (actually 2 amps short of the recommended 20) and is probably insufficient for overclocking but the test results are poor on both stock and overclock mghz.

Is there a major issue with the card or the motherboard or both?

Thanks for any advice.

take the overclock off, and they will never know...

try and seat it better in the slot, and yes, mine has some half-length connectors as well. is there a power plug in the back of it that you are maybe forgetting to plug in?

the PCI bus shouldnt affect the PCI-E bus IRQ wise at all. It should be fine. The buses are separate.

i think you should definatly get a new PSU though.