Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with videocard

Death of a laptop

Iteki — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:43:13 -0800

Laptop is giving up the ghost. Ram? HD? Videocard? Full explaination of symptoms inside, help me get it at least to a place where I can back it up. Fujitsu-Siemens E7010 with two 256 ramsticks and every Popcap and Real Arcade game ever released just got seriously hinkey. Excuse the length, want to get all details I can think of in.

Other than running hot and slow forever we have experienced no pre-fail symptoms like freezing, crashing, etc. Last night the machine froze, and the screen flimmered at a very high frequencty. Unreactive, we shut it down by holding the powerbutton. Gave it a minute and restarted. Not a peep visually, and no particular startup sounds (disk activity, CD engaging etc) but the fans and screen backlight did go on.

This morning, having given the ramsticks a bit of a push to check they are seated properly I booted up. Got the bootscreen and was given the warning that it hadn't started properly last. Continued and it froze before getting any further. Shut it down and tried a while later. Got it to safe-boot, couldn't find the external HD, and tried a full boot. All well and good, but then it froze again and did the screen-flimmer.
Starting 'er up again gave me no boot screen, just fans and backlight.

I don't want to stress the computer out by trying too many different things, I am a little worried it might be the HD (but no clicking or banging). The only real two things I can think of right now are to check the ramsticks, trying them one at a time in each of the sockets, and otherwise to try hook up the HD to a desktop for backup. Ideally I want to squeeze a few more months out of this baby, so ideally it's the ram and I can just buy new stuff.

Thanks for bearing with me, little help?
(on preview, no POST beeps)

Which of these computer components is faulty?

Who_Am_I — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:37:41 -0800

I bought a new motherboard and a new video card, and now my computer beeps and won't boot to Windows. Which one is to blame? I've just combined this motherboard and this video card to build myself a new computer. When I power on I get one long beep and then three short beeps, which is code for "No video card or bad video RAM" according to BiosCentral (no beep codes in the mobo manual, thanks Asus). Ok so bad video card right? Except that after about 30 seconds the monitor does come on and it attempts to boot: POST screens come up, I can get into the BIOS, etc. If I let it continue to boot I get the "Safe Mode, Boot Normally, ..." screen, and then it bluescreens no matter which I choose. Also I was able to fully boot into an Ultimate Boot CD which contained a Windows environment. If the video card were actually bad, I wouldn't be able to do any of this right?

All this makes me think faulty motherboard. I flashed the BIOS to the newest version, and changed the setting for "default video device" from PCI to PCIe, neither of which made any difference. I don't have any spare compatible components to test anything separately, and the board has no onboard video. I'm pretty handy with computers, but this is my first time working with stuff like PCIe. Is there something obvious I'm missing? I bought through Newegg so I assume I'll be able to RMA anything I need to.

Upgrade! (To contined obsolescence)

Annon E Moose — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:48:27 -0800

Budget upgrade: Will my PC game performance improve more from upgrading my Athlon 2100 XP (1.7 Ghz) processor or my GeForce 6600GT (256mb) AGP video card? So as you can tell I haven't upgraded in a while. I normally upgrade my machines stepwise, but I hit a wall and my next serious upgrade would require not only replacing my motherboard and my processor but my video card (because of transition from AGP to PCI-e) and also my RAM as it's the old DDR.

I've determined that I can't afford that right now. While I don't like the idea of buying a component that I will replace in a year, I've decided I'm willing to upgrade one component. And thus I came to MeFi. I don't know which one is limiting my game performance more, and besides that I don't know if my limited options will give me a noticeable difference. I know this might sound like Chatfilter but I think there's a real answer to this.

System: Athlon 2100 XP (1.7 Ghz), GeForce 6600GT (256mb) AGPx8, 1gig DDR RAM

Limitations: Processor must be an Athlon XP. Video card must be AGP

These days I'm playing Team Fortress 2 at bare minimum settings and it's completely playable 98% of the time. I'd just like some better resolution, but if there isn't a good solution I'm willing to suck it up.

(My guess is that a video card will help the most, but I'm not 100% and also worried about the AGP bottleneck.)

Laptop display is suddenly very dark

sotalia — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:54:36 -0800

Weird laptop display problem: A second after starting it up, the screen gets very, very dark. I have a Dell Inspiron 8600, and I'm running Windows XP. When I start it up, I can see the Dell splash screen for a second and then the Windows XP splash screen for a second, but then the screen gets very, very dark. If I stare at it really hard, I can just make out the outline of what's there. I hooked up the laptop to an external monitor, and everything works fine on that. Is this a video card problem? If so, is it something that I can probably fix myself?

Other information that may be relevant: I've been using my laptop in hot, humid tropical climate for the last month, and sometimes tiny ants try to get into the machine.

Graphics card conflict?

Spike — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:18:08 -0800

Why might my computer be rejecting my new video card? It'd been almost 3 years since I built my current machine, and I thought it was time for some upgrades to squeeze a couple more years out of it before relegating it to fileserver duty. Things were going more or less smoothly until I put the new video card in. And that's when this happened:

When I boot the computer, nothing is displayed on the screen at all. Shortly into the POST, the internal speaker emits a series of tones -- long-short-short -- and then, if the displayed POST codes are accurate, proceeds to boot normally. For reference, this is the same behavior it exhibits when I attempt to boot it with no video card installed at all. When I swap in my old video card (ATi Radeon X800), everything works fine. What I'd like to know is why this what's happening, why, and ultimately how to get it working again.

Relevant machine specifications:
Abit AX8 motherboard
AMD Opteron 175 CPU
XFX GeForce 8800GT model no. PV-T88P-YDE4 (I had no idea how many 8800GTs XFX made before I looked this up)

Upgrading a video card vs. upgrading a CPU for gaming?

joshrholloway — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:06:31 -0800

I just got a relatively new PC secondhand. What should I upgrade first in order to most successfully play games? I just inherited a custom-built box that's got some really decent parts in it. Basically I'm wanting to play some of the more current games out there and try to do it as cheaply as possible. I don't necessarily need to run these games at the highest settings, but I'd like some eye candy along with a good clip.

Here are the current machine specs:

-Celeron D 3.06 GHz
-nVidia GeForce 7300 GS (PCIe)
-1GB DDR2 SDRAM
-Generic Intel motherboard (sorry, don't have the exact model right in front of me...)

So I'm looking around online and I found a pretty sweet deal on a GeForce 8600GT (256MB GDDR3), which from what I can tell is a pretty good card.

Then, of course, we're dealing with that Celeron processor. I'd like to get a Core 2 Duo in there, but it would cost me almost twice what the video card would to get the one I want.

I'm going to be able to upgrade both relatively quickly, but my question is this: which of those two components is going to be the best option to upgrade first in order to see the biggest performance boost for gaming? I'm thinking the video card, but some friends are convincing me that whatever video card I get above what I have is going to be severely bottlenecked by the Celeron.

Help me, AskMeFi!

(P.S. Suggestions on components and/or deals are also welcome.)

possible upgrades for an old computer

baphomet — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:21:10 -0800

Potential upgrades to my aging desktop system- some advice from geeks would be greatly appreciated. I'm planning to do a few upgrades to my 2002-ish Dell Dimension desktop system. The processor is a P4 2.0gHZ, and the system has 512MB of PC3200 RAM with a Radeon 9200 for a video card. I can provide an update on system specs later tonight if anybody has questions about something.

Now my primary use for this system is for playing World of Warcraft, which is not especially system intensive. Nonetheless, the game does run sub-optimally on my sub-optimal system- I don't need the graphics to look jaw dropping, but as you might imagine getting 2-5 FPS in Shattrath is brutal and slows me down a lot. My network connection is fine, so I think it's the RAM/video card that is having the biggest impact at this point, so that's what I intend to upgrade.

I'm probably going to buy a new computer at some point in the next year, but I can comfortably spend around $100 on upgrades just to get me over the hump.

First question: A co-worker has offered to give me some old DDR RAM sticks he has no use for, but they're PC2700 instead of PC3200. He's offering to give me 1GB of RAM, though- is the 1GB of PC2700 going to be faster than 512k of 3200? I imagine it would, but I really have no idea. Also, can I mix chips with different speeds, or will putting a PC2700 chip in my board make the 3200 run at 2700?

Second question: My Radeon 9200 video card is an antiquated joke at best. I'm looking at 512MB video cards on eBay and it looks like I can get one for about $60- the thing is, given that my system is somewhat older, I'm not sure if I'd be able to take full advantage of a 512MB video card. If I upgrade my RAM to 1GB will I be able to take advantage of the 512MB card, or is my comp too old/underpowered to utilize one, making it more efficient to buy a 256MB card?

Thanks!

My videocard is rusty. What the hell, science? I thought we were friends.

tracert — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:44:18 -0800

All the screw holes on my video card are corroded. Is it worth my time to return it, or should I just clean it off? Today as I was replacing the heatsink on my new video card, I noticed that all the screw holes and some parts on the PCB were covered with this weird corrosion. Here are some pictures (sorry about the focus, I only have a dinky point and shoot). I've used the card for a few hours, doing some testing, but haven't tried anything graphics intensive yet.

Unfortunately I bought this card online, from far away, so I think it will be a lengthy RMA process if I choose to do that. Is it worth my time to return it, or should I just clean this thing up myself? Also, if I should do it myself, is 70% isopropyl alcohol good enough, or should the concentration be higher?

This is going into a brand new shit hot system, so my feelings will be seriously hurt if something goes wrong this soon. How should I fix this?

computermuch?

saysthis — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:43:55 -0800

Up in ur antique pc's optimizin ur network. I, a previously porn-surfing net monkey whose "kit" was a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop (a retard's computer if there ever was one), have through recent endowments of hardware and employment opportunities, become the proud new owner of a fleet of slightly antiquated electronics that will need to be strung together and (probably) modified and moved if I'm not going to go insane tranferring massive volumes of data from one to another. This isn't so much a tech question as a planning one - what would you do with all this stuff? How can I get the best use out of it? I have 2 desktops from...I don't know who, but both are 3-4 years old and from the Pentium 3-4 era. Both work fine. I also have my old Dell, which of late has been falling apart. It's nothing big...but everything little, like loose connections on the motherboard, a dead USB port (which means there's only one functioning one, and it can't handle devices that draw power from the laptop), and we won't even get into the overheating issues these things have. It makes it almost impossible to do anything processor-intensive. There's also a Sony Vaio T350, an ultraportable thinger 2.5 years old. That works perfectly, which is exactly what I need it to do.

But now we get to the employment duties part. I am, officially, an editor of a company publication, the content and web manager of a film distribution agent (with occasional editing and subtitling for the same), and an occasional writer/photographer, which needs editing. On top of which is my day job, language teaching, which often requires multimedia presentations and assembling things off the web for class. I'm also a classic web addict and download hog, so I have a couple of USB IDE drives I need to factor into this whole thing, and one of them is failing and the other is showing signs of failing, so those need to be replaced and will be shortly, but with SATA/IDE/Firewire/blahblahblah I honestly am clueless about how low or high I want my technology investments.

Here's how I envision it: The writing/web-presentation-assembly stuff is pretty easily delegated to the Vaio. That's the most easily portable to the couch. I'm not too keen on using that to do the sorting through hundreds of DVD's requires though, because replacing those drives isn't cheap. One of the desktops will be a dedicated straw, to which I plug in my archiving drives every day and clean out what I want and don't want. The Inspiron laptop has a desktop processor and takes desktop RAM (I think), and is for all intents and purposes a "desktop replacement", which is exactly what this class is called, and so I figure I may as well use it as such - I've got a copy of Ubuntu that I need to learn to use before XP goes completely obsolete, and which I'll need to expand to everything, so the Dell will be training wheels, as well as my intake for all the gunk I download, i.e. I'll plug it into the stereo as my mp3 player, or watch a movie on it in bed. Which leaves the other desktop as my "content" computer. To turn it into that though, I'd ideally like to wire in a TV and do a double monitor setup so I don't have to hunch over the 15-inch screen while I watch movies all day. And concurrently I'd like to be able to work on the website over the LAN while I screen these things and upload them, another task which the Vaio seems fit for.

So, what do you think? So long as any part can be had 2nd-hand, money isn't an object. Ergonomics? We're half-moved in and we've got a lot of space to move things around. Virus protection? What can I turn off and what should I leave on all the time? The only network I've ever built is setting up wifi in my old apartment, so if anyone has any suggestions, experience, ideas, I'm glad to have them.

Help me figure out what part needs replaced

mrmojoflying — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:06:05 -0800

Is it my cheap monitor, or my cheap video card? Or both? Let me explain: my Envision 19 in. monitor has begun to resize the screen at seemingly random times. It makes a little click and the screen shrinks by 10-15%. Five, ten, fifty minutes later it will resize to normal.

I have also began noticing curious instances where the bar at the top of my windows (where the hide, resize, and exit buttons are) disappears when I have too many windows open.

Because I'm also running an ageing Nvidia 5200 video card, I thought perhaps it might be the card. I updated the drivers and that seemed to help (or maybe it was my imagination) for three weeks or so, but now the problems have begun to resurface.

I need to attempt a fix this week. Which should I start with?

Best price/performance modern video card?

killdevil — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:40:06 -0800

Neeerrrrrrrrdfilter: I want to play Bioshock. Help me find the most economical way to upgrade my video hardware so that it will run the game satisfactorily. My desktop machine is a not-over-the-hill-but-not-brand-new Pentium D (last gasp of the Pentium IV architecture if I recall correctly) running at 3.2GHz. It came with an nVidia GeForce 6800 (AGP), which I use to play Source-engine games at 1920x1200 and about 30fps with HDR disabled.

My understanding is that Bioshock -- and other new games, for that matter -- will probably not run especially well on a GeForce 6800. What is the best modern ATI or nVidia card I can buy from a price / performance standpoint? I don't want to drop $500 on a bleeding-edge video card, but I do want to play Bioshock at or near full settings, and also be able to play Day of Defeat: Source at much better framerates WITH HDR enabled.

Suggestions?

Old PC compatible with widescreen LCD?

AstroGuy — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:01:25 -0800

Will one of the newer widescreen LCD monitors work with my 2 year old PC? I have a 2 year old eMachines T6522 with an integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200 video card. My 2 year old 19" LCD (non-widescreen 4:3 ratio) monitor is crapping out on me and I need to replace it.

Looking at monitors at CC/Bestbuy, etc., I see the widescreen ones are most common and it's hard to find the older ones anymore. The widescreens I'm looking at run at a native resolution of 1680x1050 which is not an option in the display properties control panel. Will this combo work? Do the monitors come with special drivers for this resolution? I will be connecting the monitor via the VGA connector (don't have DVI out) if that matters.

Any info you can provide before I plunk down cash for a 22" widescreen that won't work with my PC will be greatly appreciated.

As a side note, this PC has a TV tuner card and Windows XP Media Center edition so I use it as a TV/DVR occasionally, so the widescreen would be nice.

In what way exactly did I cripple my laptop?

scarylarry — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:59:24 -0800

Did I kill (injure, actually) my motherboard? My video card? Something else? So I, uh, spilled a very small amount of diet coke (~1TbS) on the keyboard of my Dell Latitude D600 laptop when someone knocked into my chair. I spilled it in the region of the F5, F6, F7 and 5, 6, 7 number keys. I immediately turned my computer off and removed the battery, set it open to dry for 24 hours.

Since then, the display has been *periodically* whacked. My computer will display and work normally anywhere from 5min to several hours at a time, but then all I can see are flashing colored lights or scrolling patterns of some kind. It doesn't work again until I've let it sit a good several hours.

I tried hooking up to an external monitor when it was displaying said rave lights, but the lights showed up there, too--so I know it's not my display.

I have two questions: 1) any idea what it is I've actually damaged? And 2) is it worth taking it in to get fixed (the computer is about a year our of warranty, so no luck there)? I've wanted to get a new comp for a while, but now is not the time for me financially. Sucks to be without a computer the majority of every day....

Thanks in advance for your learned advice!

CEREAL: "Oh wow, we are fried."

radiosig — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:18:28 -0800

What is going on with my computer? Black flashes, weird picture artifacts, screen freezing. It's not the monitor (swapped that out already). Is it the video card? Weird pictures inside! http://www.kiplingmitchell.com/radiosig_problems01.jpg
http://www.kiplingmitchell.com/radiosig_problems02.jpg
http://www.kiplingmitchell.com/radiosig_problems03.jpg
http://www.kiplingmitchell.com/radiosig_problems04.jpg

The computer is a mostly stock Dell Dimension 8300 from 2003 I think. This has all developed over the last 48 hours, getting steadily worse until now I can't even use the machine (I'm posting from a laptop). I didn't install anything new or change settings significantly before the problem started, although since then I've installed an external backup drive and saved all my stuff, and I've installed and run Ad-Aware and AVG antivirus (neither found anything significant). In addition to what you see here, the screen will hang and then go black for a good full second when I try to open or even maximize a program like Firefox or AIM and will have this weird "hiccup" where it momentarily goes from black screen to "true black" (like, the screen actually turns off). Sometimes it does this two or three times in a row, and then the picture will come back having changed to whatever I was trying to view. Other times, the screen will just be frozen and won't do the blackout thing and also won't load the new thing. Here's the extremely weird part, though: except for when the screen goes black, the mouse cursor never freezes and will always respond to me. State-change type elements like links or buttons on half-loaded web pages will pop up when I happen to mouse over them (see 4th screencap).

I didn't realize computers could break this way. It seems almost like a Hollywood portrayal of a broken computer to me than something that could actually happen. I'm thinking either video card or virus, can you guys vote up or down on those theories? Thanks in advance.

Why is my video/image quality grainy?

jimdanger — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:55:46 -0800

20" LCD Monitor + GeForce Video Card = Grainy Images/Video. I just built my first computer. My video card is a PNY Verto GeForce 7600 GS and my new LCD monitor is the 20.1" LCM-20v5 from Westinghouse. Both of them have pretty good ratings from what I can tell.

I installed all the drivers that came with the video card, and have tried both a VGA cable, with and without the DVI adapter, and just a straight DVI cable but my monitor quality is still giving me two major problems:

1) The max resolution is 1400x1050, which is the only one I can use, otherwise all text looks blurry and blocky, like there's no anti-aliasing.

2) All images and video, regardless of format or codec, look grainy. It's like I can see the tiny dots making up the picture, or see the different layers of shading. This is especially noticeable for dark colors. I was hoping to have some good quality DVD playback, but it looks like I'm watching a good quality VHS instead. Nothing is crisp or clear.

I've played around with the advanced options that the nVidia card offered, but had no luck. I reset it to default so I'm not working against myself. I know nothing about video card stuff, so I'm hoping I'm just making some newbie mistake. Am I?

Why is City of Heroes overheating my PC?

grabbingsand — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:36:58 -0800

ComputerHardwareConundrumFilter. I built my PC about two years ago. Works great, mostly. But lately, when playing one particular game, my PC performs for only 16 or so minutes before shutting down completely. As you might expect, there's a lot ... Thanks in advance for your attention. Here's the conundrum for you:

I've been running an MSI Nvidia GeForce FX5900 XT for a little over two years now. It is no longer the top of the line, if it really ever was. However, it has performed admirably in most of the games that matter to me. Oblivion quickly became a slideshow, but Half-Life 2/Counter-Strike: Source look good and perform just fine with a little in-game tweaking. World Of Warcraft worked well, as did City Of Heroes/Villains ... for awhile.

However, for the last five or six months, I can't get more than 20 minutes of gameplay out of City Of Heroes. Even with the in-game settings dropped to half, my entire system shuts down. Completely. No blue screen, no warning. And the worst part? No event registers in the XP system log.

My frustrated guess is that COH is particularly apt at targeting the RAM chips on my FX5900 XT and overheating them. Of course, my assessment of this overheating is very unscientific. The FX5900 XT has no on-board temperature monitor, so I've only my index finger to depend on.

In an attempt to get a little more life out of this otherwise okay card, I purchased an Arctic Cooling Silencer and installed it last night. I figured that would be an improvement, as MSI's stock heatsink/fan only covered the GPU, not the RAM. (I posted photos of the Arctic Cooling install to Flickr. Perhaps there was a mistake in my installation.)

But even after installing the Silencer and popping it back in the case, I could only stay in COH for 16 minutes. A reach into the case confirmed that the back of the card under the RAM chips was just as hot as before.

I'm sure I need a new card, but I'm quite keen on exhausting as many available options as I can. I'm also one of those poor souls with an almost defunct AGP slot, not a PCI-e, so my replacement options are limited.

So I ask you all ... given my situation, has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Any advice? And if the problem is not my super-hot card, then what else?

Some folks have suggested that the power supply might be dropping the ball on this one, that maybe the power output has diminished over the past two years. This is possible, but wouldn't such an issue manifest itself in more than just one particular application?

For reference, here's my set-up: AMD Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF3-250 Motherboard, 1 GB RAM Mushkin {3200) DDR400, Western Digital 160GB SATA harddrive, MSI NVidia GeForce FX5900 XT 256MB, all powered by a StarTech 480w Silent Power Supply.

Is my video card's VGA out dead?

mullacc — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 12:54:44 -0800

VideoCardFilter: Is the VGA out on my video card dead? My new PC came with an ATI Radeon X1300 video card with one DVI out and one VGA out. I have two 19" Dell monitors and I'm running WinXP Media Center.

I set it up with the DVI out as the primary monitor and the VGA out as the secondary monitor and desktop extension. The driver recognizes the monitor (it even recognizes the brand/model number) and appears to be controlling it. But, the monitor remains black*. I can even mouse over to and drag windows over to the second monitor, but I can't see what I'm doing over there.

The monitor appears to work fine. I was running the same monitor on my iBook via VGA out without issue. And when I switch the DVI/VGA outs on the PC, which ever monitor is hooked up to the VGA out has this problem.

Is my video card defective? I've reinstalled the driver and scoured the various menus, but I don't see anything wrong. Any ideas?

* - to further elaborate on what appears on the monitor...it remains black but will occasionally "flicker" from black to a "glowing" black similar to what my TV looks like when it's powered on but has no video source. The power button glows yellow as if its on stand-by. I've made sure that analog and not the digital source is selected on the monitor.

Apologies if this is easy Google-able--I wasn't having any luck.

Questions About Upgrading a Mac Pro

kirkaracha — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 13:11:20 -0800

I just got a Mac Pro and I have questions about upgrading the hard drives, video card, and Bluetooth. I got the mid-range Mac Pro (2.66GHz), without changing anything from Apple's standard configuration. I do web development (BBEdit, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.) and very occasional video editing in Final Cut Pro. I play a couple of games, but nothing too video-intensive.

Hard drives: Apple's Technical Specifications page says the Mac Pro supports SATA; the Ars Technica review says SATA II. Which is correct? What's the difference? I already have an internal SATA hard drive from my now-defunct G5. Can I use it in my new Mac Pro?

Video card: I decided to stick with the stock NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT (even though the Ars Technica review said it was "like having a can of Schlitz with filet mignon") because, based on these comments it seemed like I'd be fine with it for what I'm doing. What would I gain by upgrading to a ATI Radeon X1900 XT if I'm not happy with the stock video card?

Bluetooth: Can I just buy a Bluetooth doohickey and install it myself? (I have a Bluetooth USB dongle, so I could probably just use that.)

ONCE upon a time and a very good time it was...

Satapher — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 20:47:05 -0800

Help me diagnose my recent computer woes--a tale of rhythmic lag pulses, involuntary reboots, and sporadic "No Signal" messages from the monitor. Recently, five minutes after I load up any number of games (including the trusty benchmark Quake3) the sound and the graphics began to skip in perfect rhythm : 1! and a whats you say 2! and a whats you say 3... and so forth -- during the first 5 minutes the games run smoothly as always

After closing the game and returning to XP desktop, I notice that the pulse is still there... if I move my mouse in a circle 'in beat' it always pauses at the same place on the screen...

If I reboot at this point, it will get to the blue "windows is saving your settings" screen but will freeze and require a manual restart

If I do nothing and go about my business, within about 10 minute the computer will either restart suddenly, or the monitor will give a "no signal" message -- the same it gives when the computer is off -- and no matter how I coax it with any number of button presses or keyboard commands, the song remains the same ;|

The problem was irritating me to no end last night, so I reformatted, made sure everything was up to date (chipset, bios, video drivers etc) and...

its the same story... so to make a long story short, what has happened to my computer that it no longer wants to run programs it has handled a million times before -- even after a format ;\

computer specs:
athlon xp 1800+ (mb: ECS K7S5A)
768MB DDR 2100
geforce 6600GT

350W PS (could this be the problem? Im hoping this is just malfunctioning, since its cheap to replace!)

Looking for a video card in the $100 - $200 range

Riemann — Sat, 06 May 2006 20:23:48 -0800

My laptop died today and I am in the market for a new computer. I am building my own system and am having trouble figuring out which video card to get. I want to spend between $100 and $200 for a PCI Express 16x card with DVI output. I would like to think that I am fairly knowledgable about these things and have built several systems before. However, I am rather confused by the current video card market. Currently I am considering a GeForce 7600 GT for $180. A link to the specific card on NewEgg can be found here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130017

Is this a good deal for the money? Would a different brand or chipset be a better way to go?

On a related note, a new monitor is in the works as well. Current front runner is this 19" LCD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?Item=N82E16824116355

Any thoughts on better deals in the same price range?

What PVR program will work with my All-in-Wonder X800?

Kraki — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:39:10 -0800

I've got an ATI All-in-Wonder X800 XT video card. Where can I find a good PVR program that will work with this card? My All-in-Wonder X800 came with some basic PVR software, but I don't really like the interface. I'd like to find a PVR program that will actually work with my card. I was excited about the release of Yahoo's new free PVR, but my video card isn't recognized, so I can't use it. Any Sugestions?

Laptop video card upgrade

jimmy — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:20:33 -0800

Is it possible to upgrade my laptop's video card?

Best video card for DVI output to HDMI input?

omair — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 09:30:09 -0800

Has anyone had success connecting a PC (DVI output) to a TV (HDMI input)? I, myself, have not tried it yet, but have a couple of questions before I do... Reading the countless forums and webpages that discuss this, there seem to be a lot of issues (sync, overscan, etc) connecting a computer to a TV through HDMI...although theoretically it seems pretty simple to me.

I was wondering, are there specific video cards that any of you have tried that have not given you any issues? I have a Panasonic EDTV (and the only input that is currently free is HDMI), a PC with Windows Media Centre and I still need to purchase a video card.

To connect to the TV, all I know for sure is that my video card will have to have a DVI output, but will things be as simple as connecting the two together, or will I need to put more thought into what kind of video card to get?

So, is there anything to worry about, or can I go pick up an average video card (like the ATI Radeon 9500) and excpect DVI to HDMI success?

Thanks!

PVR/video card question

Mayor Curley — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:01:02 -0800

For a friend who is also doing a PVR project with an old machine:

I have a home made PC with an XGI Volari V3 128 mgb and a Magnavox (27MT3305/17) and I am trying to connect them through S-Video. The TV shows nothing but rolling grayscale ghosts of my desktop. I cannot find any means of configuring the video card to s-video, so I assume this is automatic.

He also writes:

"My ultimate goal is to use this as a living room web tool, music player, video, etc. I would like to not have to rely on a standard monitor each time I boot.

What am I doing wrong?"

I hate hardware.

muddylemon — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:33:37 -0800

Why does my new video card cause a memory dump during boot? Long Story: I have a Dell Precision 350. A few months ago the fan on my video card got clogged up, overheated the chip and kaputznik. I threw in a spare card i had laying around - I bought it in... say 1996 or so. So it's working, but sub-optimal at least. Today I went to the store and bought a 256mb GE-Force something or other. Here is where I made my first mistake, I left the old card in, because I thought I could run both - dual monitor-style. Upon further inspection, I found I could do this without doing that. Anyway, while both were in the computer I installed the drivers for New Card, then i pulled the old card, and it booted with a generic VGA adapter running, however the card was listed in the hardware manager. I played around trying to get it to use the new card, and went so far as to disable the generic VGA adapter that was listed in the display settings. Since then, booting with the new card in causes the machine to crash in a memory dump during boot, around the time it's loading the AGP drivers. I went back to the store, figuring I'd just get a PCI card and skip this whole mess, but accidently bought another AGP card (long day.) It's doing the same thing with this new Radeon something card. So, can this card be saved? Will buying a PCI instead skip all this hassle?