JMT74

Yeah I believe my video card is gonna die soon. I have had green and pink lines come up on the screen intermittently over the past week and a half. It didn't do it for a week after it first happened but it did it again the other day. I tried updating the video driver. That didn't matter. Here is a picture of the issue. Anyway here is my other question. I am trying to find a video card that is rated for a 250w power supply. I don't feel like upgrading my power supply to be able to use the graphics cards out today. I need a video card that is 4X/8X AGP. All the one's I see on the market that are HD need a power supply of 300W or more. If I am gonna get a new video card I want a good one to go with my new Acer 22" widescreen 1080p monitor. Any suggestions?

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Phædrus2401

You'll have to replace the PSU regardless. What is your current card? I bet it's running under-powered on the 250W PSU, which is why it is dying now. A graphics card should last up to 5 years or more assuming it has clean and ample power.

What's your budget? You need (not a recommendation; need) a new PSU and a new graphics card, so for 4x/8x you're looking at at least $100+.

JMT74

Well if it's running under powered its been doing it for 8 years now lol. It is the original video card the system came with. It is an ATI Radeon 9700 TX with TV-out. Those green and pink lines that come up would leave me to believe the video card is finally coming to an end. Maybe I am wrong.

emosun

Look for an old 9200 agp on ebay , should be fine on an old power supply like that. Don't bother going any higher though.

JMT74

Ok I see a bunch of them on ebay. Would it be ok to go with the 256mb instead of the 128mb. The one I have is 128mb. Also I have a Radeon 9700 and you recommend the Radeon 9200. Is that not as good as my 9700? Thanks.

Phædrus2401

The 9200 is weaker, but the 9700 requires more power. The reason your 9700 is dying may be because it's been running on a PSU that can just barely provide enough power for it. When a power supply is being heavily taxed to provide close to its maximum power, if it isn't a high-quality unit it can suffer voltage fluctuation and electrical noise/ripple. The former usually takes the form of a voltage lower than the nominal (The +12V rail might run at 11.7V) with, in low quality units, spikes as high as .5V higher than the average. The latter is tiny, continual spikes in voltage that all PSUs encounter, usually in the range of a few mV, but on a heavily taxed low-end unit they can go over 100mV.

Over time, this uneven voltage can damage your components, and the most vulnerable components are RAM chips. RAM is very sensitive to changes in voltage, a tenth of a volt too much can fry it, and and too little voltage can make it run poorly. Graphics card VRAM is usually one of the first casualties because there's a lot less of it than your system RAM, and it's written to a lot more often, especially during gaming. Over time the unstable voltage can damage VRAM sectors, causing data written to them to be corrupted. This results in artifacting, which shows up as randomized lines or dots of color, strange lighting effects, distorted images, and often times crashes.

Usually this shows up a lot sooner, though. The Radeon 9000 cards are from 2002, so I'm guessing your computer is 5-7 years old. Probably what happened is that originally your PSU was just fine for the 9700, but now as the PSU has aged the capacitors and traces can't handle as much current, the PSU has to try harder to provide power, and over time the voltages get worse and worse.

Thus because of your aged PSU we can't really recommend another 9700 because you may end up seeing the same problem again this time next year or sooner. The 9200 draws less power, so the load on the PSU will be less and the voltages will be more stable.

JMT74

That makes sense. This is the card that DELL recommends. It is a Radeon 9550. Do you think this will be fine? If downgrading to an inferior graphics card will I notice different graphics. I have been used to pretty clear graphics over the years. Also should I stick to a 128mb or could I go for the 256mb in the one you recommend or the 9550. Sorry if I am confusing you. lol

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Graphics_Cards/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A0507578&mfgpid=154575&chassisid=8200

emosun

Go with the lowest 128mb 9200. Your looking for minimal power usage. The 9200's standard visuals will be identical to the 9700's except in games.

JMT74

Well I like buying from ebay however with something like this how can you be sure if they are selling you a new video card or older one? It seems these cards have been discontinued from what I have looked up on the net. I see some on there and they state Video card does not come in a retail box. Doesn't seem to kosher. Here is the link to that specific one I am talking about. Would you trust it? LOL

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ATI-RADEON-9200-128MB-AGP-VGA-VIDEO-CARD-R-10835_W0QQitemZ350094641376QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item51834448e0&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

emosun

Every 9 series card is going to be 4 or 5 years old whether it's in the box or not. Go for a better seller with it in the retail box

http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-Radeon-9200-...d=p3286.c0.m14

It's 256 , but it's at least from a better seller and in it's box. It also has a better return policy.

JMT74

LOL. Ok so now your saying its ok to go with the 256mb card over the 128mb? I'll shut up after this post lol.

emosun

Yea hopefully the lower end gpu will save enough power.

JMT74

Ok. So the green and pink lines happened again when I was dragging something on the screen. I rebooted and it went away. It also just happened when I was dragging the Firefox webpage to the middle of my screen. I let go and it went away. Does that sound like the video card or maybe the OS? I just bought that 9200 video card. I was waiting til it happened again. lol

Phædrus2401

I'd say it's the card; an OS problem won't cause that. Try the 9200 and see if it works.

JMT74

Ok. So I just installed the video card you had me buy on that ebay link. Come to find out its a Mobility Radeon 9200 card. I installed it. Seems to work no problem. Aren't those cards really meant for a laptop? Is this a problem seeing I have a desktop? The description never mentioned it was a Mobility card. Kinda ticked about that because I wanted to download the most recent driver from ATI. I had it ready on my desktop and it failed because it is a ATI Radeon 9200 driver and not a Mobility Radeon 9200. I think there is a difference. What should I do if anything? There is no drivers even on the ATI website for a Mobility Radeon 9200. I had to use the CD that came with the card and I am not even sure the driver on the CD is the latest version. Thanks. Did I get cheated by ebay?

emosun

Well if the drivers it came with work then it'll be fine. But I wold contact the seller and confront them for not mentioning the proper gpu name being a mobility gpu. Althought I think it's weird that it's a mobility because, well it shouldn't exist in agp form.

JMT74

Maybe I just have the Mobility Radeon driver? Although I have Everest Home Edition and it tells me I have a ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 (M9+X)Video Adapter. Does that only detect what the driver is? Might I actually have the regular ATI Radeon 9200 series? I really wanted the Catalyst Control Panel software with it. Didn't come on the CD and I can't find it for the Mobility Radeon. GRRRRRR. Why does crap have to be so difficult?

emosun

You can try uninstalling the driver that it came with and download the normal 9200 driver.

JMT74

Oh I tried that first and came up with an error message saying Severe INF error Video driver not found. That is when I put in the cd and that installed. So I assume that wasn't the correct driver I tried from the website? I give up trying to guess lol