About AGP

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

My motherboard supports agp 2.0 up to 4x... sounds like the newer radeons support up to 8x, does that mean they won't work with my motherboard? If so, can anyone recomend a 4x compatible video card that supports dual display as well as video out that is of similar quality?

Edit: well according to ati's site, the card I want is compatible with 4x, so I went ahead and bought it.

 

[gameboy900]

Erm...you may want to check what voltages your mobo will support on the AGP slot. AGP 1x and 2x are 3V and 4x and 8x are 1.5V. As you can imagine using the wrong voltage would be a BAD thing.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

according to ati.com:

Intel® Pentium® 4/III/II/Celeron™, AMD® K6/Duron™/Athlon®/Athlon XP® or compatible with AGP 2X (3.3v), 4X (1.5V), 8X (0.8v) or Universal AGP 3.0 bus configuration (2X/4X/8X).

are the requirements. My mainboard is 4x compatible, that means they should work togethor right?

Is there anything I should do before plug the new graphics board in? like in the bios or anything?

 

[Curtis]

Nope...should be plug and play. Just make sure you uninstall drivers for the old card before you turn the machine off to install the new one. Save a bit of hassle that way.

 

[Gallstaff]

Oh... shit what happens if you dont? My friends building his comp as we speak and he didn't do that.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

if he's building a new comp it shouldn't be an issue.... just please tell me he's going to do a format and a fresh install of windows... and isn't going to try something insane like taking an os and trying to run it with all the drivers still there on another computer, please oh please tell me he's not doing that.

 

[Gallstaff]

Ok I wont tell you that's what he's doing

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

That's a huge huge huge no no. Your windows install is full of drivers for all the stuff on your motherboard, and all your cards and stuff, and he's going to force it to have even more drivers just sitting there. You should just format it and use a fresh install of windows with the new pc.

 

[gameboy900]

I have this rule.

If a piece of hardware I'm adding/changing has it's own custom drivers then a full Windows reinstall shall occur.

Just saves me on hassles.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

yup, I won't be formatting when I install the new graphics card right away, but probably shortly after I get moved I will.

 

[Alexvrb]

It depends. I have had a Windows install (not my own) with a lot of stuff on it that would be difficult to get (discs lost) and they only had access to dialup. Since I was far away from my cable at home, I just went ahead and used the existing Win98 SE from the old machine and shoved it in the new one. As long as you get it booting into windows, you can uninstall whatever you need to, reboot, install new drivers. It worked very well, and still does to this day. Stable, and decently quick for a K6-2 500 with a 20GB 5400RPM drive.

I mean, if I don't have to reinstall windows just for the sake of going "wheeeee!" then I'm not going to. There are ways to remove old graphics card drivers, for example, and then install new ones with the new card. Amazing. On the other hand, if were to swap out a mainboard with something totally different, I would of course want to reinstall. IF I had the discs to do so. If I did not, and it was not my computer, I would do whatever I had to.