Ok my Radeon 9700 Pro is officially dead. My computer doesn't POST with it. I tried it in another computer that has onboard VGA, switched the BIOS to try to init the AGP card first, and it POSTS, using the onboard! :(

The headspreader on the chip heats up, but no matter what I do - remove all devices, use VGA instead of DVI, plug no auxilery power (should cause the card to display "requres additional power" on screen", I can't get a picture or a POST beep.

ATI just lost a customer for life. Last card I hard of theirs (9100), the fan died after 10 months, and games strated crashing because the heat was not beaing extracted from the chip. I didn't notice for 3 months, which meant it was out of warranty. I removed the fan, and passive cooling worked though...but they still seem to have bad quality control (the 9700 Pro here has been RMA'd 3 times).

Never had any problems with NVidia with the GeForce2 MX I had, and that card is STILL going! 6600GT looks appealing... :)