Any Luck with a PCI-E card under $80?

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l333

Member
Sep 13, 2002
46
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0
I know I'm not spending a lot of money here but I'm just trying to replace the ATI onboard video in the Compaq 1710NX.

Can someone recommend a card under $80?

Do you believe this will give the Compaq a performance boost?

Do all PCI-E require a power supply cable or just high end cards?

Thanks
 
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L00PY

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2001
1,101
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0
No.

Your Compaq is using the Xpress 200 chipset and the graphics is equivalent to a X300. There isn't a new sub $80 card that would be worth the money as that ATI IGP (and the NVidia 6150 if you prefer green), are veyr decent for IGPs.

Just high end.

I'd suggest saving until you can afford to spend 50-100% more. You'll be able to buy a better card then. You might want to try adjusting amount of memory allocated to the onboard video. Depends of course on what you're trying to do of course.
 
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l333

Member
Sep 13, 2002
46
0
0
Wow - thanks Loopy.

you suggest adjusting amount of memory. Is this done in XP or is there a place for this in the bios? I have plenty of memory and can allocate more to the video if it will improve performance. I have 768 RAM now. Could even add a stick to get it up to 1 gig if necessary.

The problem I'm having is that after windows boots I still am getting the hourglass periodically when opening applications. I have removed all the garbage that came with the machine so I am assuming the hangup is the video.

thanks
 
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beserker15

Senior member
Jun 24, 2003
820
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allocated memory is adjusted in the bios. as for the hourglass thing..video card shouldn't affect that at all. what cpu do you have and what applications are you running?
 
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l333

Member
Sep 13, 2002
46
0
0
It's the Compaq 1710NX that all of us bought for 140 plus tax.

It runs the Sempron 3400 at 2.0gz.

Im opening IE and Word.

It just seems slower than the Athlons I have that are also running around 2.0gz {overclocked}.
 
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beserker15

Senior member
Jun 24, 2003
820
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he's not really having speed issues with video though...just load apps. then i'd say get the 1gb of ram and possibly allocate less to the video to free up ram. a good defrag might help load times as well.
 
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l333

Member
Sep 13, 2002
46
0
0
I went into the bios - of course it is set at the default onboard video, however underneath that is "allocated memory - 64 meg" but it is grayed out and I can't adjust it of course because of that. The bios is dated Nov 2005 so that is pretty up to date.

Is there a trick to ungraying the memory box?
 
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jdkick

Senior member
Feb 8, 2006
601
1
81
If you're only looking to increase performance of the workstation and not games, then I wouldn't bother upgrading the video. IGP is fine for day to day stuff. More importantly, in stock trim that Compaq is running with a single 256MB DIMM. Instead, spend the $80 on 2x512MB DIMM's (matched DIMM's or a kit) and install them in the blue slots. That will give you 1GB in dual channel mode and will do more for your performance then replacing the IGP.

Now, if you've already boosted the memory then there's not much more you can do aside from trimming down the software. You may still have some factory installed apps running in the background...
 
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hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
18
81
i dunno i have had the IGP before. the rs480 igp with no onboard ram as is the case with most rs480s is pretty slow.

its about as slow as an x300se. x300se is pretty sad btw.

i picked up a x1300 non pro recently for like $60 and it is still a lot better than an x300se. $80 could probably gtet you a 6600 ddr2 256mb card. that would be like 4 times faster than the igp
 
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