ALAN_MACAULAY
Member
Registered: 9th Nov 02
Location: Irvine
User status: Offline
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My computer's doing something strange, which I think is to do with the Graphics card.
When it is started up, the monitor comes on for about 5 minutes, then it appears as if the signal to the monitor has stopped, as it goes into standby mode. The PC still stays on and looks like it works normally. If I try to restart the computer once this has happened, at the power on self test, instead of the usual one beep to say everythings alright, it plays a tune 
I had the case opened last night, and I think it might be an AGP card, as it has the little catch which closes over a tab on the card when it is slotted into place, then to remove it you press this key down and the card rises slightly. Is this AGP???
Finally, whats a decent graphics card out just now to replace it?
Cheers people 
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Dan B
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Registered: 25th Feb 01
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An AGP-slot, does yours look like this?
On the note of replacing it, what sort of budget are you looking at? And what's the current card?
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ALAN_MACAULAY
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Registered: 9th Nov 02
Location: Irvine
User status: Offline
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That looks familiar, so yeah it probably is.
Not wanting to pay much more than £50, its an ATI Radeon thats in it just now, which is the one that came with the PC, but since its shaged I may as well replace it with as good a card as I can.
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Dan B
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Registered: 25th Feb 01
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£50 will get you a 128MB XFX 6600GT like this or, if you want to stick with ATI (I don't know much about them, never used them), you could get a 256MB Radeon 9550 like this...
Not sure what the ATI card is like, but the 6600GT cards tend to get good reviews for the price. It's not cutting-edge, but for under £50, you're not going to get a card that plays new games decently anyway...
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ALAN_MACAULAY
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Registered: 9th Nov 02
Location: Irvine
User status: Offline
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So what sort of price am I looking at for a decent card? And what kind would it be?
I used to know what was decent in the computing world, but its been that long since I've had to look for stuff I don't know whats the best gear now.
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Dan B
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Registered: 25th Feb 01
User status: Offline
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As a comparison, this is the card I bought almost two years ago now, that Scan look to be selling the remainder of their stock in. Given that AGP is pretty much becoming obsolete now, replaced by PCi-E, that's probably one of the better AGP cards they have for sale...
Of course, if you can get hold of a 7600GT (I don't know if they ever made an AGP-version, but you can check), that'd be a good bet.
If you're serious about gaming, however, I would seriously consider a conversion to PCi-E. It really depends how much money you can throw at it, though...
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ALAN_MACAULAY
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Registered: 9th Nov 02
Location: Irvine
User status: Offline
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I saw this PCi-E on some of the cards on those links, how recent is this? My PC is about 3 years old, whats the chances of it being compatible?
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Dan B
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Registered: 25th Feb 01
User status: Offline
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If you have an AGP slot in your machine, completely incompatible......it's a totally new type of graphics-card slot, to replace the AGP slot, so you'd need a new motherboard.
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
User status: Offline
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the best AGP card for that price right now is the 7600GS. overclocks very nicely!!
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Dan B
Member
Registered: 25th Feb 01
User status: Offline
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Cheapest AGP 7600GS I can find is £77......was the £50 version from somewhere dodgy like ebay/ebuyer?
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Cybermonkey
Member
Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
User status: Offline
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$77 sounds about right. will do you for Windows Vista, fully Hardware compatible
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