NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000

[margrihh]

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000

Hello there,

I have the above graphics card which seems to be slowly losing power -
or whatever graphic cards do when they are old. What happens is that
the graphics, instead of appearing instantly, unfold over the page
like a wave. I believe I need a replacement but have no idea where to
start.

I'm an oldie with a 2003 windows xp pro and will never play games.
However, I would like to be able to watch clips and videos in good
quality and be able to update the graphics card when necessary.
I have an AGP slot and would prefer a card that doesn't require a lot
of resources and is not loud but has its own cooling system. This is
information I have gleaned from forums, where there were complaints
about loud, hungry and overheating cards.

I should be grateful for any suggestions and recommendations, even
warnings!

Advance thanks.

 

[Bryce]

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000

Hello there,

I have the above graphics card which seems to be slowly losing power -
or whatever graphic cards do when they are old. What happens is that
the graphics, instead of appearing instantly, unfold over the page
like a wave. I believe I need a replacement but have no idea where to
start.

I'm an oldie with a 2003 windows xp pro and will never play games.
However, I would like to be able to watch clips and videos in good
quality and be able to update the graphics card when necessary.
I have an AGP slot and would prefer a card that doesn't require a lot
of resources and is not loud but has its own cooling system. This is
information I have gleaned from forums, where there were complaints
about loud, hungry and overheating cards.

I should be grateful for any suggestions and recommendations, even
warnings!

Advance thanks.

Are you certain this is not a slowdown resulting from inhaling one
or many viruses?

 

[margrihh]

Are you certain this is not a slowdown resulting from inhaling one
or many viruses?

I'm pretty certain,
AVG hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary - nor Spybot nor MS
Firewall. Why exactly do you ask that question?
I do all the cleaning up required, i.e. empty caches, defrag etc. so
it's not that causing the slow down, I surely haven't got a virus - so
what else could cause such a problem?
Do graphic cards do behave differently when they collapse? I have no
idea. I'm just guessing it must be the card because the visuals are
affected.

 

[Bryce]

I'm pretty certain,
AVG hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary - nor Spybot nor MS
Firewall. Why exactly do you ask that question?
I do all the cleaning up required, i.e. empty caches, defrag etc. so
it's not that causing the slow down, I surely haven't got a virus - so
what else could cause such a problem?
Do graphic cards do behave differently when they collapse? I have no
idea. I'm just guessing it must be the card because the visuals are
affected.

Rogue processes running in the background are the most likely cause.
I brought it up as a reminder, in case you hadn't checked. My
neighbor regularly does search-and-destroy on his daughter's
computer when it gets really slow at writing the desktop.

I don't recall ever seeing a video card just get tired and slow down.
For me, digital stuff either works or croaks completely. I fled the
world of Windows years ago, so I don't know whether the drill of
reinstalling drivers, et. al. would help.

Do you have access to another machine to try swapping video cards
to see whether the problem resolves (or moves)? Even temporarily
installing a pci video card will help diagnose what's going on.

 

[margrihh]

Do you have access to another machine to try swapping video cards
to see whether the problem resolves (or moves)?  Even temporarily
installing a pci video card will help diagnose what's going on.

Unfortunately not. I'm the only one around here who's even interested
in computers. A pci video card wouldn't help anyway because I have an
agp. Apparently the slots vary and the new pci won't fit.
Ho hum. I shall probably have to live with it, unless someone comes up
with an answer.

 

[Grinder]

Unfortunately not. I'm the only one around here who's even interested
in computers. A pci video card wouldn't help anyway because I have an
agp. Apparently the slots vary and the new pci won't fit.
Ho hum. I shall probably have to live with it, unless someone comes up
with an answer.

Your computer probably has a PCI, note that this is different than a
PCIe slot, that you could put an older video card into. I concur with
Bryce that it would be odd for a video card to "wind down" like an old
clock.

 

[Derek]

Your computer probably has a PCI, note that this is different than a PCIe
slot, that you could put an older video card into. I concur with Bryce
that it would be odd for a video card to "wind down" like an old clock.

if all else fails there is a PCI version of the FX5200
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130188 there seem
to be a few on fleabay for around £35 inc postage
Derek

 

[margrihh]

if all else fails there is a PCI version of the FX5200http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130188there seem
to be a few on fleabay for around £35 inc postage
Derek

Well, thanks for the information guys. I shall have to chew on it for
a bit and see what I can do. If things get worse, I shall have to get
in an expert. Otherwise I shall watch the pages slowly rolling over my
monitor. (Its really infuriating if you're in a hurry).
Thanks again, bye for now.

 

[margrihh]

Not sure if I understand the problem but from what you
described it sounds like what typically happens if a system
is running out of memory so it has to be paged back in and
that slows down the video display.  Next time it happens,
look at Task Manager to see the stats on memory Commit
Charge, Total and Peak versus Physical Memory - Total, or
Available.

The extended Firefox toolbar shows the following statistic:

Document: 100%
Images: 70
Loaded: 109 KB
Speed: 26.6 KB/s
Time: 04:098

Which means it takes the machine some 4 seconds to load the start page
of my provider.

To load a data bank like Ref.com (192 KB) with 15 images it takes
12:668 seconds at 15.16 Kb/s.

It really is infuriating. What's even more infuriating is that you can
never ask companies like Nvidia a direct question.

 

[margrihh]

This still does not seem to be a video card problem.  I've
had some of those cards and they've never caused what you ar
describing, are plenty fast enough to display anything in 2D
with no user perceptible lag.

Well, thanks for that, I shall have to look elsewhere for the cause of
the problem. I'm no nearer to understanding my computer than I was 10
years ago. I give up.
Cheers