Computer gurus: computer help

[mrodgers]

I'll start by saying, this isn't really photography related... I have a rather older computer (2005). The graphics card went south on me. I've been away from tech on a computer for quite some time and the quantity of cards available is staggering. I'm looking for some suggestions.

Here's what I have....

Compaq SR1750NX
AMD Athalon64 3500
1 gb RAM
Currently Sapphire ATI Radeon x1650 PCI-E 256mb

Trying to hunt down the wattage of the stock power supply.
The card went out on me (overheated, my fault). It is an add-in card that I added a while back. I'm not much of a gamer and what I do game with the card ran just fine for me. I was perfectly happy with the card. I am looking for something to complement the AMD 3500 so that I am not going too much for that processor. I am looking for around $50-70 of which I see way too many cards that I don't have any knowledge of.

I see that there is now PCI-E2 of which I was told should be backwards compatible with PCI-E slot. I am knowledgable up to about the GeForce 7600GT cards and am not knowledgable about ATI at all. nVidia or ATI, it does not matter to me. Someone elsewhere had recommended an ATI 4650 card of which I found pretty cheap on Newegg.com. I thought this might be a bit too much of a card in comparison to my other specs of which I am not sure of the power supply.

Anyone have any recommendations? As for what I use it for, I sim race with Live For Speed, but would like to go with some of the other sims and I also flight sim with FS9. The current card worked great with both LFS and FS9 so anything from the ATI x1650 and above would work just fine. I don't know what use a gfx card is for photography. That would be more of a RAM increase to benefit though, of which I could up another gig or so. Not looking for help with the RAM though.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Jaszek]

GeForce 9800 GX2 . j/k. look at the gs version of that one...or was it 9600, i dont remember.

 

[clarinetJWD]

4650 is a great card...

I have 2 GeForce 9600GTs in SLI, and they can handle pretty much whatever I throw at them (so far at least). At that price, you can find a 9600GT if you are patient and know where to look (check spoofee and slickdeals religiously)

Honestly, you could also save a buck and get another x1650. The last one of those I had cost $40, and that was a year ago!

 

[mrodgers]

I want to thank folks who have given me some ideas here.

I just want to be sure that my problem is with the gfx card. I can't seem to be able to get the computer booted up on it's original onboard chip so I'm still stuck on my little laptop from work without my photos.

The following are some snaps of my bootup. After windows loads on this last shot, the monitor goes into powersave mode as if it has lost the signal....

And as I said, after I see that final image, things are still loading up and the monitor goes blank and goes to power save mode as if the signal was lost.

Is it safe to assume that the problem is indeed the gfx card before I order one?

Thx again.


PS. Sure you can't look at the technical aspects because of the glitches, but feel free to C&C the composition of the desktop image, LOL. :lmao:

 

[Jaszek]

you can try playing around with the video cable, or there could be something wrong with the drivers if iyou say the monitor goes into sleep mode. Just had that at work the other day at someones computer and turned out to be the drivers. But judging from the quality of your viewing it's most likely the graphics card, and to get the most out of it I suggest a 22" wide screen monitor for starters

 

[Joves]

How old is your power supply. Everytime I had a card go out, I had no picture at all but, one would start and, then would go out completely. Never had banding like that.

 

[goodoneian]

GeForce 9800 GX2 . j/k. look at the gs version of that one...or was it 9600, i dont remember.

i have the 9800gx2. it's such overkill haha and runs wayy hot

 

[480sparky]

The best way to get customers is to use your age to your advantage. Most individuals with pc issues are going to be much mature than you are and they most likely associate pc well written individuals to adolescents like yourself.

Once again, in English please.......


Oh, wait............ are you going to be digging up old threads in order to start posting spam later?

 

[cgipson1]

The best way to get customers is to use your age to your advantage. Most individuals with pc issues are going to be much mature than you are and they most likely associate pc well written individuals to adolescents like yourself.

Once again, in English please.......


Oh, wait............ are you going to be digging up old threads in order to start posting spam later?

Yep.. spammer! 5 posts of computer gibberish so far....