Video Cards

[Andrew]

Well one store near me is having a sale, and I notice some extremely cheap video cards. I know they are old and crappy, but I just need one to go with my 4 year old computer to make it usable for a year or two more (I'll probably still buy a new computer, but if I can spend $50 to make my old computer much faster that would be great).

I notice

BFG Tech GeForce MX 4000 128MB AGP Graphics Card $49.91

Also wierdly

3D Fuzion GeForce 6200 LE 128MB PCI-E Video Card $69.60

Is the 6200 cheap because it is PCI?

I'm wondering if my computer has room for a video card.

Attached is the complete mainboard report from PC Wizard 2006.

Notably both PCI bus and AGP bus list my nvidia tnt2 card which I don't understand. Is it possible to install the PCI or AGP video card (I presume it would disconnect the tnt2 card?)?

Which of the two cards mentioned above is better (I really only want a real cheap video card, even if they suck, they would still be lots better than my tnt2)?

Here is a list of video cards at future shop price sorted. Any good cheap deals there?

EDIT:

Also noticed:

ATI RADEON 9250, 128MB AGP Video Card $69.97

ATI RADEON 9250, 128MB PCI Video Card

$69.97

ATI RADEON PowerColor X550, 256MB PCI Card $69.97

And no I cant purchase anything off newegg or anything for good deals, so if anyone can give insight into any of these video cards that would be great. I'm only looking for a cheap vid card that is better than my 32mb tnt2 (which blows :P).

EDIT2:

According to reflagdeals.com futureshop is selling

which I presume is better deal than any I mentioned yet.

Also, are wireless mouse/keyboards any good? There will be some good deals on boxing day for them and I'm wondering if they suck or what because of wireless.

hardware.TXT

[Andrew]

I just bought this video card

ATI Radeon X1300 Pro AGP 256MB Video Card

On the box it says for system requirements:

AGP 8x graphics slot available on motherboard.

350 watt power supply or greater recomended.

I only have AGP 4x, but I presume that the 8x will work but only run at 4x. At least that is what google is telling me. The voltage part could be a problem. Hopefully I can return it if it doesn't work.

EDIT:

The manual goes on about whether i need to connect video card directly to power source or not. But it doesn't state whether my video card needs to be. It came with cords for it I think, but no where mentions I need to use them.

[Andrew]

Ok, I removed old tnt agp card, put in new video card, started computer and the screen had colorful lines all on the screen. Even during BIOS startup which is probably a bad thing.

The fan on the video card was running.

The video card came with some wires for inside the computer but according to the diagram I cannot use them. My power supply does not have a spot to plug in the cord (unless I have to remove power supply area which I don't want to), and the hard drive does not have a spot to plug in the other end of the power cord. The cord goes from video card and splits to go to hard drive and power supply. The back of my computer tower says 120 volt. and the other voltage is higher but my computer does not turn on when I select the higher voltage (240?).

The only thing I know I did wrong installing it was not uninstalling old video drivers before installing new video card. I'm gonna do that now.

Luckily putting the old video card back in works, so I'm not totally screwed yet.

EDIT:

For some reason there is no mention in the manual or any peice of paper stating I need to have the video card on its own power supply. the manual is a generic one for all video cards.

If I can't get it to work I'll have to bring it to a computer shop to see what's up.

Oddly there is no driver for my video card in add/remove program section which the manual says I need to uninstall first. I uninstalled the driver from device manager and restarted computer like manual said, but it installed the nvidia driver again. but resolution/settings are basic/default.

I do know that when i had the new video card in it loaded windows normally as I could tell by the processing usage and when I pressed alt+f4 to shut down and successfully did it gave the shutdown noise (actually it was the sleep mode, but instead is shutdown). I think.

EDIT: Tried again same problem. I did notice a cord hanging not connected that goes into the hard drive. Gonna bring this to a computer place tomorrow.

At 737-20432: Installing the Hardware it mentions something not mentioned in printed manual.

NOTE:  Some newer model video cards will require that you connect a power cable from the power supply to the video card.  If your power supply has an extra power connector, use this.  If your power supply does not have an extra or unused power connector, you will need to use the supplied Y cable adapter that came with your new card (if applicable).  This adapter splits a power connection from a hard drive or CD ROM into one that can go to your video card and another to go to the CD ROM or hard drive.  If your power supply has an extra power connection, you should use this instead of using the power adapter cable.

[Cybopache]

Hi Andrew !

If your new card has a plug in for the power cable use it. 120v yes but you need to look for the label telling you eg.120 V and 320 W. Volt and watts  are not the same. Check  the  label on the side or top of the PSU. Somewere it should say how many volts and how many watts. If the watts is lower than recomended, get a new one or use your old card  ::)

cybo

[Andrew]

About the plug for power cable, it is not really a normal plug but it looks like this (I presume is used for the y cable to connect to different stuff).

I didn't notice a #8 to connect to power supply when looking inside the tower.

The thing is I don't see anywheres to plug into the power supply inside computer. All the wires go into a small hole into the power supply area which is surrounded by a metal box. I could unscrew that part but I don't think it is safe. Also I've no idea what it talks about

Some newer model video cards will require that you connect a power cable from the power supply to the video card.

I have no idea if I have that or not. I don't notice one that comes to mind, on the part of the vid card that shows outside of tower there are 3 things: 1 is for monitor, another for digital monitor thing, and the other is a circle connector for tv video I presume.

When you are asking about watts, do you mean check the processor on my motherboard for watts?

EDIT:

I opened tower up again cleaned out some dust in one fan (the dust was probably blocking air getting to CPU.

On outside of power area it says

ac input 100-127V ~4.0A

60/60hz 200-240V ~2.0A

And it is set at 115V not the 120 I said earlier.

On inside it said

output rating: 200w max

Are power supply things expensive? (ok checked one spot and it was minimum $80) (and would it run on my computer?)

So if computer guy cant get video card to work somehow, I'll return it and use old vid card and buy new computer system ;)

[Cybopache]

hi Andrew !

You have to use one of the power cables commin from the PSU, connect it with an Y and use one for the Graph card and one end for something else(nr 8 ).DON`T MESS WITH THE INSIDE OF THE PSU.IT CAN BE PAINFUL HEHE.IT

[Andrew]

I plugged in the power cable to an extra one, and the computer booted with normal graphics (no vertical coloured lines)

But for some reason my cd-rom is unable to read the cd that came with the software. It shows the installer software when I remove the cd, but gives errors. testing other cds to see if it is a cd-rom problem. I think it's just the ati cd that doesn't work.

Odd with red alert 2 cd, it seemed to work fine, but once I removed it windows gives me continuous errors about autorun.exe - no disk

please insert a disk into drive e

So I'm just gonna download the drivers from ati website (since they would be up to date anyway).

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-xp.html

EDIT:

Installed downloaded software. Windows seems to take longer to load, but I tested one game and it seemed to run faster. Also editing one picture seems to go faster.

Google earth runs faster.

[Cybopache]

good to hear.

hope it last. Happy New Year by the way.

cybo

[Andrew]

I turned on my computer around 11AM, 4 hours later I notice a burning smell and notice my computer is pretty hot. I was just testing out warcraft 3 for an hour and it ran nicely with max graphics. Then I went to play an online game whose system requirements only require a pentium II computer.

The power supply area and the video card were pretty hot.

I guess my computer can't handle it, so I'm gonna return it and probably get a new computer. :D

Oddly my old tnt2 graphics card doesn't have a problem with the radeon drivers. But I'm still gonna switch drivers.