What should I do with this?

Cheex

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2006
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A few months ago I bought a video card for my parent's old computer for them to run some simple games.

Card: MSI MX4000 64MB AGP 2x/4x

That's what the board supports but...
It didn't work...
What can I do with it?
 

996GT2

Diamond Member
Jun 23, 2005
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Be more specific please...will computer boot? Blue screen? No signal? Any damage on the card? etc?
 

Cheex

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Jul 18, 2006
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Originally posted by: 996GT2
Be more specific please...will computer boot? Blue screen? No signal? Any damage on the card? etc?

no blue screen
signal was ok
the comp would start the boot process then just shut down and start it again
 

996GT2

Diamond Member
Jun 23, 2005
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Hmmm, that may not be the video card then...
Will your computer get past the BIOS into the windows load screen? My friend's computer would reboot when he got to that screen when his RAID-5 array failed from one of the HDDs dying.

I suggest you download and burn an Ubuntu or other Linux live-CD and try booting your computer from that. It will automatically install your video card drivers and set everything for the card, so you can see if it's a software issue.
 

Cheex

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2006
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Ok...Here are the comp specs:
Pentium 2 450 MHz @ 504 MHz
20GB Hard Drive (Patitioned: 15/5)
256MB RAM
Windows XP Pro SP2

Motherboard has a VIA chipset (Apollo Pro) but there isn't even a manufacturer shown in CPU-Z.

What to do, what to do?....lol.
Thanks in advance.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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Sounds like power supply to me. It isn't strong enough to power the new card, therefore it starts up, then shuts down, starts up again etc.
 

996GT2

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Jun 23, 2005
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Oh, that's a very old computer, are you sure the slot is AGP 2X/4X? Legacy AGP slots were 3.3V, while newer AGP 2.0 2X/4X slots used 1.5V. If you put a 1.5V card in a 3.3V slot, the card can be permenantly damaged...
 

Cheex

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Jul 18, 2006
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Originally posted by: George Powell
Does this happen with the old card?

The "old card" that came with the comp, is made by S3 and it works fine just for display though. No acceleration.
It is a card already in the AGP slot.
The motherboard doesn't have a VGA port on it (lol).
 

Cheex

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2006
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Originally posted by: Crescent13
Sounds like power supply to me. It isn't strong enough to power the new card, therefore it starts up, then shuts down, starts up again etc.

i thought of that because the power supply came with the comp so its probably like a 250 or so, i don't know. I'm not sure cuz i would have to take it out of the case to see what it is.


Originally posted by: 996GT2
Oh, that's a very old computer, are you sure the slot is AGP 2X/4X? Legacy AGP slots were 3.3V, while newer AGP 2.0 2X/4X slots used 1.5V. If you put a 1.5V card in a 3.3V slot, the card can be permenantly damaged...

I checked on this before i bought the card. The slots of are not compatable. The different voltage cards have slightly different slots. If it was a different voltage the card simply would not fit.
 

Gautama2

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2006
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Even the 250 good be having troubles, by the sound of it this computer is very old. 5-10 years?

The power supply will become less efficient each year due to capacitor aging.You may only be getting like 180 watts.
 

Cheex

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Jul 18, 2006
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The system is about 6 years old.
The motherboard however (although it came with the system) was manufactured in late 1999 (7 years old).