The manufacturer (ATI Radeon) no longer supports it with new drivers. I began looking around, the cheapest replacement I could find was nearly two hundred dollars. The performance increase would be negligible leaving the card as the weak link still. Not a good place to be.
A pal of mine recently offered to give me an unused video card that he has lying about.
This is a real boon. The unused card he offered cost in the neighborhood of four hundred dollars...or if he upgrades the card he is using now, I can have the current one.
He paid more than six hundred dollars for that. That's almost as much as I paid for the entire system.
This exposed another issue. The three hundred watt power supply that came with the computer was inadequate. The video card required a four hundred fifty watt power supply at the minimum.
This same pal then found a six hundred fifty watt Thermaltake power supply listed at Newegg.
Subtotal:
|
$62.99
|
Tax:
|
$5.67
|
Shipping and Handling:
|
$4.99
|
Total Amount:
|
$73.65
|
In my mind I ran through the instructions for removing and replacing the power supply. Three days after I placed the order the item arrived.
I was ready and rarin' to go.
Except for the fact that the instructions were printed in a grey color in a very small font which meant I used a magnifier to read my way through, the operation was a resounding success.
Even though the computer is over five years old the technology for power supply connectors has advanced to the point where if you have a motherboard that accepts a twenty pin main connector the extra four pins actually break off to accommodate your older board.
My CPU uses a four pin connector so I broke the standard eight pin connector along the serrated line and installed it.
The hardest part is my sausage fingers trying to install keyed connectors at strange angles in close quarters. A nice hemostat provided the dexterity I required.
My CPU uses a four pin connector so I broke the standard eight pin connector along the serrated line and installed it.
The hardest part is my sausage fingers trying to install keyed connectors at strange angles in close quarters. A nice hemostat provided the dexterity I required.
The old power supply.
The new power supply with no dressing of the cables, yet. I just shoved the floopy and SATA cables into the drive bay. And the PCI-E cables which the new video card will need with the red connectors are just laying at the bottom of the case.
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