Nope

you would think it would stop working.... display would turn off.. or at least the vard fan would stop working.. but nope, nothing changes.. my guess is it draws power from the mobo if it isnt hooked up instead of straight from PSU? or maybe im way offbase.

It will take power off the board but not enough to be fully functional.

Are there any particular BIOS settings regarding the AGP function?

BIOS Options

AGP Aperture Size (512) was 256 but i bumped it considering its a 512
MB card, still cant install drivers
AGP 3.0 Mode 3x (greyed out cant change)
AGP Driving Control (Auto)
AGP Driving value DA
AGP Fast Write Disabled
AGP Master 1 WS Write Disabled
AGP Master 1 WS Read Disabled
AGP 3.0 Calibration Cycle Enabled

Other AGP option was AGP Voltage, was set at 1.5 is that where it should be?

That indicates your board is AGP 2.0 or AGP 4x.

Although your card is AGP 8x it is also known as 8x/4x meaning it should work at the 4x level but not up to its full capability.

.8V is the voltage requirement of new 8x AGP cards utilizing AGP specification 3.0. Motherboards supporting 8x AGP support both 1.5V AGP 2.0 compliant cards (AGP 4x) and newer .8V AGP 3.0 compliant cards (AGP 8x). The keying for AGP 3.0 cards is identical to that of AGP 2.0 cards to retain backward compatibility. A motherboard that supports 8x AGP should work fine with a 1.5V (AGP 4x video card), and a motherboard that supports 1.5V (AGP 4x) video cards should work ok with a .8V video card (AGP 8x), however in the later example the video card would only work at the fastest speed the motherboard supports (AGP 4x).

What is 1.5V AGP and .8V AGP? 1.5V AGP and 1.8V AGP Card Guides-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

Have you tried removing all ATI drivers then loading the new one (9.2) in Safe Mode?

Yep tried uninstalling everything again, and installng 9.2 in safe mode, still a no go.

I'd suggest contacting Sapphire:

Sapphire Technology - support

Gotta love outsourced tech help. Sapphire was useless, they said there is nothing wrong with their product or drivers, if i have issues contact ATI tech support. So called them and they said no talk to Sapphire, etc etc etc... seems neither of them stand by there product. So after 2 hours of back and forth, am back at square 1. Stock, out of date drivers causing random system dumps. GRRRRRR

I'd suggest removing all ATI software/drivers and run a driver cleaner:

Driver Cleaner Professional download from Guru3D.com

Also might want to clean the registry:

Freeware

Reboot and try the latest drivers again.

If they fail reload the old drivers and get some dump logs as seen in this post:

BSOD
--------------------------------------------------
Read the post HERE for a few diagnostic ideas and post back any relevant data.

Download DRIVERMAX Install & it will find the most up to date driver & will download it & install it.It's a great tool.