HTPC: Help on video choice and video issues

[Gillbot]

I have an old pc here and I was gonna use it as a "HTPC". Nothing high end, mainly for streaming video clips and mp3's to my living room. For some reason, I'm having trouble with the Motherboards AGP slot. When i power off the system, I have to remove and reinstall the AGP card or the system won't boot. I dumped the AGP card in flavor of a trident 2MB PCI to keep the system running. I have used a Savage S4 32MB vid card, #9 16MB DVI AGP card with DVI to analog adapter and an Intel i740 8MB AGP card. The i740won't even boot in the system, the #9 has to be removed between boots and I don't recall any problems with the Savage4 but that card is now gone.

System Specs:
Gainward 5VPA Mobo
AMD K6-2 500@550MHz
288MB SDRAM
PCI 2MB Vid card
Phillips PSC702 PCI Sound
Mitsumi IDE CD-Rom 6x
20GB IBM IDE HDD
10/100 PCI Ethernet Card
Floppy


What would be a good card for this system with TV-Out that can stream clips to my TV. I'm not concerned with playing DVD's through it since I have a dvd player, I just want to watch downloaded clips and whatnot. Maybe put some winamp visualizations through the TV while playing MP3's. Would an older ATi All in wonder suit this task?

 

[konakona]

for TV-outs, matrox is still the king of the hill i heard...

 

[fisheye]

so you're looking for another agp card? i don't think you'd need the all-in-wonder (with a tv tuner) unless you want to get into recording TV and stuff.... just a basic card with TV out should work...

probably wouldn't be a problem with an old radeon 7000 or geforce mx series.... , $30-$40 new

i'm using my dad's old fx5200 here for my htpc, it does what it's supposed to, looks fine (as well as it can look on my cheapo apex tv....)

i don't know what agp cards are compatible with that mobo...kind of old. the radeon 7000 should work, supposed to be 1x 2x 4x compatible. (or you could get the pci version)

 

[Gillbot]

I was thinking PCI for the lower cost but I'm not sure how well they'll do video. That's why i'm open to suggestions!

 

[Gillbot]

ttt

 

[konakona]

i recently picked up a refurbished p650 from newegg. it may not fit your budget ($97 shipped) but who knows, maybe difference is worth it. i will post my findings once the card gets here.

 

[Gillbot]

No way i'd put that much of a card in this system. The card would be worth more than the system itself, not to mention i doubt it would have enough cpu power to run it well.