trying to revive a p3 system ..

[Battalion23]

my friend gave me a p3 system that started crashing.
either the video card or the motherboard is faulty...
I think either the video card , or the motherboard slot isn't that good , 'cause sometimes it works.
the computer starts fine all the time, but the screen doesn't always work. I checked the screen itself and it's cables with other computers and it's fine, all the time.
I wanted to replace the video card with someone else, to verify if it's the card or the mobo, but ... I took my brothers all in wondr 9600xt... which is agp 8... and it doesn't fit.
and now i'm not sure which slot i have on the mobo. in fact, all the p3 stuff is wierd. the cpu and hsf are on a card and slotted in the mobo...
I have several dark brown slots , than some white ones, and only one brown one - that's where the old video card went.
is it agpx2 ? agp x4 ? how can I find out if I can't find any writings on the mobo or card, and I can't get the video card to work straight long enough to check my components?

 

[bluestrobe]

Welcome to the world of Pentium3 Slot 1 computers. I would find the model number of the board and google it, that's your best option. You probably can find the motherboard maker's web site then find an online manual. As for the AGP x2/4 question, they should both be the same type of slot. As for the slow coloring, AGP is usually brown for that era, PCI white, and ISA black. If your other brown slots are on the bottom of the board they may be ISA. ISA slots are about a 3rd longer than PCI slots and the pin concentration is a lot less than PCI.

As for diagnosing, I would try an older AGP (2x or 4x) card as newer ones might be too much for it. If not I would try a PCI video card and see if that helps.

 

[BladeVenom]

Have you already ruled out the possibility it's a driver or operating system issue?

 

[Battalion23]

yeh, it's either contact, or power problems...
on a curtein angle the card works , everything works, and I get windows xp stable. slow, but stable. than I restart for formatting, change the bios for cd rom first, it works, but somewhere there after one or more boots , I lose the screen. I checked it, I let the windows xp stay for half an hour , not touching anything - it works...
maybe the card overheats in boots, maybe it's just contact... on the motherboard or the card... that's why I'm looking for another card
but pci cards are hard to find (used, just to verify...I don't wanna buy it and than find out it's not the problem... spending money on a p3 seems awfully rediculous..) , and the all in wonder I got doesn't fit. I have a friend who's bringing me another old agp card tomorrow... we'll see.
I just needs something stable and quiet to run downloads, 'cause my laptop crashed after too much use...

 

[SpeedEng66]

could be a agp pro? (I think thats the name of it)
I had one of those on a old slot 1 (p2 days lol)

 

[bob4432]

also remember there were different voltage agp cards, so be careful. and the p3 stuff is not weird, that was the technology for that particular family then i am currently running a skt370 550MHz (733 underclocked) p3 to run a https site onboard video, haha but does the job.

personally i would get a pci video card for it

 

[magreen]

post a pic!

 

[bluestrobe]

Originally posted by: bob4432
also remember there were different voltage agp cards, so be carefull

I forgot about that, DOH!