Which Video Card for Old Computer

[dullard]

My parents somehow got another video card to die. I replaced the thing in their old computer ~2 years ago, and now that one failed too.

Symptoms: Monitor works, cables work, but text is smeared horizontally across the screen.

Specs: I don't know, they don't know, and they live out of town. All I know is it is an old machine, probably a 800 MHz Athlon. I think they are running an LCD without using the DVI connection.

Yes, they should toss the whole machine. But, until they do that, what is the cheapest video card that will work with it?

 

[nonameo]

is it AGP? most likely a 3.3v AGP card will work in it.

check here for more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGP#Variations

 

[Ares202]

do you want a new video card or a used one

Im guessing its AGP so anything like the ATI 9500/Geforce 4 would be fine and you can get one of ebay for like $15

if you want new, maybe the radeon 9550

If its a really old PC it might have a PCI slot, in that case youll probably be able to find an Fx5200 or FX 5500

 

[dullard]

Thank you for your replys.

I would be looking at a new video card. I believe it has an AGP port, but I'll call them and see if the sticker on front of the computer mentions it. If not, I'll get the model number and look up that information online.

Would Radeon 9550 be a good concensus for cheap?

 

[ions]

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 64MB = $13.99

GeForce4 MX 440 64MB DDR 8x AGP

Alot of cheap AGP cards here.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

For their purposes, anything that looks/feels/smells like a video card ought to be sufficient. Get whatever is cheapest - Radeon 95xx/96xx ought to do the trick and have plenty of horsepower for any of those silly point-and-click games parents like to download from AOL Games/Pogo.

I believe most machines from that era had an AGP 4X slot?