AGP Card for £60 - £80

Daftboy

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At the moment I have a MSI FX5200 card installed that has 256mb ram.
Now, I'm looking for a new AGP card that is better than this for around £60, but at a must £80.
All of my current games run like a dream on the system I have, even HL2, but I put Pacific Assault on the other day and it struggles a little.

Now, I don't really want anything that will overload the PSU either.
Reason, ever since I fitted an additional DVD writer to the unit, when booting, the system either locks or does not boot.
After 3-4 resets, the system runs fine. I have tried the usual re-format, etc but I am still having the same problem. It could be HDD, but i think it's the extra load on the PSU casing the problem. It's only a cheap one that was included in the case :lesson:

Any suggestions on the card and even the fault would be of great help.

Many thanks,
 
Not sure what card you should get, check out some for sale forums and the like, get one cheapish second hand.

To test whether your PSU is indeed the culprit of your problems, just unplug the DVD writer and boot up, see if the problem persists.

EDIT: Also, upgrading the graphics card to something fairly recent will put more pressure on the PSU than it does at the moment, obviously, so more problems are likely to appear if and when you do upgrade.
 
Point made, and even though I have one of thoose screwless cases, I just CBA.
Maybe I will have a go tonight, it's just the problem is intermittant, so some days / weeks no problems, and the other weeks it does it everyday.

I see it as a feature rather than a problem (Should have been a sales man).
 
Why not stump up a further 10 quid and get a 6800le, I used to own one and it was a pretty good card for the money, I was able to run battlefield vietnam on full settings with no issue
 
You dont need to take any screws out just unplug the DVD writer. Takes 10 seconds to do.
 
steve-o said:
You dont need to take any screws out just unplug the DVD writer. Takes 10 seconds to do.

Thanks for the advice, this I already know, but I just CBA by the time I get home, put kids to bed etc, all I want to do is relax, my years of messing around with PC's is behind me.
Anyway, I tried it this morning and low and behold, the PC fired up okay, reconnected the PSU to the DVD, and fired up okay.
Could it be anything to do with the HDD not parking the heads correctly? :confused:

Regarding the Graphics, plenty of ATI cards to choose from, any Nvidia cards recommended? I guess the 6800le is Nvidia?
I have been out of it for a little while, so I am trying to get up to speed again.
I thought by now, the 9800 pro's would have come down in price, but I guess the switch over to PCI-E has caused the prices to remain stationary?
 
Daftboy said:
Regarding the Graphics, plenty of ATI cards to choose from, any Nvidia cards recommended? I guess the 6800le is Nvidia?
Yes, your right there :smashin:
 
Man ... thats a good price but can honestly say that I have never heard of that make but for that price who cares.
 
sometimes you can be duped by the low prices...I would check the memory timings for that card on the manufacturer's website first. You may find they are using slower memory on this card. I might be wrong though...just being cautious!
 
Cool, well I will get it touch with them now just to confirm it's AGP, fan, etc and hopefully buy one today. Maybe with the money saved, I'll get a new hard drive and see if this cures the startup problem I have.

Thanks again,
 
did you get the card and how did it work out?

Cheers Darko
 
Hi Darko,

Haven't got it yet. Called them up after receiving no e-mail back and the guy on the phone didn't know.
I am going to pop down today as they are about a mile away and check the unit out first hand.

Thanks,
 
Ordered the card online as it was £20 cheaper than in the shop. Should be here by the end of the week.
Confirmed it's AGP.....Great!!!
 
Gutted, just received a call from them, they have recalled all of the stock as there's a fan problem, so my unit will never arrive (The cinic in me says the pricing is wrong!).
Don't really know what to do now.
Not too sure if I should take up the offer on the X700 or look for another card?
I can't compare the X700 as there are not many reviews + I'm not a big fan of ATI cards.
Anymore experiences / recommendations would be welcome.

Thanks,
 
bummer

I will have a look around for you tonight bud

Darko
 
After a couple of months searching, I've finally got a ATI 9800Pro All-in-wonder (Bit more than I needed) for a good price £50 out of the micro mart magazine.
Anyway, before I install the new card, do I need to remove all of the old drivers first and then remove the old and install the new graphics card?

Never switched makes before and I've read somewhwere (Maybe on old Nvidia drivers) that the product should but uninstalled first!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
just seen this thread, i'm a bit late as usual.

i got a 9800pro a few months back and had some trouble. it ended up shutting down my computer and lets just say i had to replace a motherboard in the process which i wasent happy about.

after trying out a few things it ended up being the power supply. i had a 300w which was the minimum requirements. i was going to get a better power supply but i thought the 300w would be fine for at least a few days.

i also sent the card back, incase it was at fault. but first thing i did was get a better power supply. some friends have the 9800pro and it runs all the games fine for them. really good card.
 
Thanks for the infor, luckily I have a 350W PSU.
Fitted the card and it runs like a dream. HL2 and MOHPA run fine now.
BTW, I finally figured out what was causing the power problem.
I have a case fan sensor and card adaptor, USB and firwaire port thing in the front of my unit (PC Doctor II) and this was sucking the power on random boots. Have had the device disconnected for 2 weeks now and it looks like (Fingers crossed) this has fixed the problem.

Let the games begin!
 

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