Simviation Forum - Advent computer video card upgrades

Jan 7^th, 2004 at 10:22am

Zaphod Offline
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I started a thread on the fs2002 forum entitled "Nearly bought FS2004 today but..." and received a promt reply from 4_Series_Scania. He re-enforced my suspicion that the GeForce4 MX 440SE 128MB graphics card which came as standard with my PC wasn't as good as I thought it was, and recommended an Asus V9570TD GeForce FX5700 256MB as a good replacement. I've just visited my local independant computer store and he was happy to show me an Asus V9570TD GeForce FX5600 256MB, untill I told him I had an Advent 3316 from PC world.

He sniffed, and after looking down his nose for several seconds, turned his back and walked away. After being pressed, I was told that the motherboards used on Advent PC's are not built to "industry standards" and he doubted that I would gain much, if any benefit from a new Graphics card? He then started going on about AGP's (I think) and whether it had a geniune Intel chip set, etc, at which point my eyes glazed over and I left.

Now at £130 pounds for a new card I am not sure I want to take a chance on no improvement in my frame rates etc.
Has anyone any experience of upgrading the video card on Advent computers?

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

My system specs as far as I can gather are;

Intel P4 3.06 with Hyper threading
512MB DDR Ram
52x CD-RW
16x DVD
GeForce 4 MX 440SE 128MB/TV out
80GB hard drive.

ps

I should add that the machine is still under warranty so I'm loath to open it up just to see whats inside.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But why take the risk?
Intel i7 950 3.06Ghz (8mb Cache)
MSI X58 Pro-E MoBo
MSI GeForce N480GTX 1536 MB GPU
Corsair MXS£ DDR 3 (3*2GB) RAM
Corsair professional HX750W PU
Samsung HD103SJ Sata HD (1TB)
Samsung 23" SyncMaster SA550
Windows 7 64 bit home

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Reply #1 - Jan 7^th, 2004 at 11:00am

congo Offline
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Look here:

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/faq/pc/3316.htm

This shows a MicroStar mainboard, so here it is I believe:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=845GEM-L...

Your problem is that this Chipset doesn't support 8x AGP Graphics standard, it supports 4x AGP mode only at 1.5 volts.

All is not lost, many 8x AGP Video Cards will run happily in 4x AGP mode.

4x AGP may not be industry standard , but it's not bad.

Just check to see if the video card you want has support for 4x AGP and the 1.5 volt AGP slot.

Ummmm....... be brave.... take a little peek in there, you own it! I bet it looks just like the one in the second link.
If it's different, write the model number into google search and research your mainboard, it's possible (though not probable) you have a mainboard with 8x AGP.

Good Luck.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #2 - Jan 7^th, 2004 at 1:43pm

Zaphod Offline
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I'll be back!
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Posts: 687

Congo.
I feal very humble.
Thanks for the info. I have visited both links and have more info about my PC than I thought was possible.
One thing I note is that the graphics card supplied with the PC is 8xAGP which seems strange if the motherboard isn't designed to get the best from it? I suppose I will have to bit the bullet and open it up and have a look!!

Anyway, thanks again.

I really love these forums!!

Zaphod.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But why take the risk?
Intel i7 950 3.06Ghz (8mb Cache)
MSI X58 Pro-E MoBo
MSI GeForce N480GTX 1536 MB GPU
Corsair MXS£ DDR 3 (3*2GB) RAM
Corsair professional HX750W PU
Samsung HD103SJ Sata HD (1TB)
Samsung 23" SyncMaster SA550
Windows 7 64 bit home

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