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Has the PCI-E spec changed?

G

geepondy

Member
I bought the Staples special Compaq Presario CQ5320F as a home PC for the girlfriend, thinking I could install my old Nvidia 7600 GT card. However, when I insert the card, it's not working. Sometimes there is no output but the onboard video still works, other times the PC locks up while windows starts. When I remove the card, onboard video works fine again. I did go to the BIOS and selected PCI-E as the primary graphics card.

Any reason why this card wouldn't work which is why I wondered if the spec changed and this card is not compatible despite fitting in the connector ok? It does not have a plug for, not require an external power plug. The onboard video is NVidea 6150, isn't that about the weakest onboard video these days? I know she won't ever do anything more then place online flash games and watch videos but it will be at 1920x1200. Can the onboard video handle that and the win7 aero graphics?
 
If it fits, it'll work. The spec did change, but it offers backwards compatibility and was after all that hardware was released. So you're running a PCIe 1.x card on a PCIe 1.x motherboard.

As for why it's not working, that's a bit tougher; I don't have any immediate good answers for that since it sounds like you're already disabling the IGP.
 
Make sure PNP OS Installed is set to Yes in the bios, if that isn't enough set it to assign irq to VGA if it has the option.
 
geepondy said:
I know the power supply is only 250W but I believe the graphics card doesn't suck much power.
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250W? Yikes! You may very well not have enough juice, particularly on the 12A rail. Do you have the full specs for your power supply?
 
ViRGE said:
250W? Yikes! You may very well not have enough juice, particularly on the 12A rail. Do you have the full specs for your power supply?
Click to expand...
its going to have a 12v rating of 15 amps. that is low but for a very basic pc it should have no trouble powering a 7600gt. though it might be pushing it for long term use since that cheap psu doesnt actually make its advertised power in real world conditions. now if he was to use furmark and prime95 at the same time he would really be asking for trouble.
 
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I had a 250w in my P4/Radeon 9250SE when I bought it. It has 11amps on the 12V rail. I replaced it immediately.

Most likely its the PSU. The 7600 wasn't the most power efficient mid range card. Neither was the x1600.
 
Do you think the 6150SE chipset can handle the graphical features of win 7? I read that Vista really choked with onboard video, is win 7 better?
 
geepondy said:
I bought the Staples special Compaq Presario CQ5320F as a home PC for the girlfriend, thinking I could install my old Nvidia 7600 GT card. However, when I insert the card, it's not working. Sometimes there is no output but the onboard video still works, other times the PC locks up while windows starts. When I remove the card, onboard video works fine again. I did go to the BIOS and selected PCI-E as the primary graphics card.

Any reason why this card wouldn't work which is why I wondered if the spec changed and this card is not compatible despite fitting in the connector ok? It does not have a plug for, not require an external power plug. The onboard video is NVidea 6150, isn't that about the weakest onboard video these days? I know she won't ever do anything more then place online flash games and watch videos but it will be at 1920x1200. Can the onboard video handle that and the win7 aero graphics?
Click to expand...

Why is the onboard still working when you insert the 7600GT? Are you not plugging the VGA cable into the video card? The onboard should be disabled in bios with nothing plugging into it.
 
geepondy said:
Do you think the 6150SE chipset can handle the graphical features of win 7? I read that Vista really choked with onboard video, is win 7 better?
Click to expand...
The 6150SE meets the minimum requirements for Vista/Win7 Aero, so it should be able to handle the graphical features. If you have a ton of windows open it may slow down some, otherwise it should be fast enough. The spec pages say it has PureVideo, so video decoding should also be decent. However it won't be close to fast enough for any 3D games.
 
The Compaq BIOS is somewhat limited. The only option is "primary video" with options of VGA, PCI and PCI-E. Strangely enough the default was PCI. When I installed the 7600GT, I only had the DVI cable hooked up but after several seconds of no video, I reattached the VGA cable to the onboard graphics port to see if working and it was.

TemjinGold said:
Why is the onboard still working when you insert the 7600GT? Are you not plugging the VGA cable into the video card? The onboard should be disabled in bios with nothing plugging into it.
Click to expand...
 
Totally off subject but the Compaq computer will not recognize my 16GB tiny thumb drive (forget the manufacturer) at all but will recognize my old 1 GB drive no problem. Why is that?
 
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