GeForce 5500

G

Guest

I bought an AGP PNY GeFORCE FX 5500. My computer only has slots for PCI,
though, I saw an empty slot that looked as if you could add the AGP reader.
Where can I get that one and how much would it cost?

I don't really know wich one is the motherboard, but here is everything my
computer has

CPU: Intel® Celeron® D 330 Processor
Chipset: Intel® 845GV chipset
Memory: 256MB DDR (PC 2700) Expandable to 2GB
Hard Drive: 60GB HDD
Optical Drive: 52x Max CD-RW, 16x DVD-RW
Media Reader: 8-in-1 digital media manager (USB 2.0, Secure Digitalâ„¢ (SD),
Smart Media, Compact Flash, Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO, Micro Drive,
Multimedia Card)

Video: Intel® Extreme Graphics 3D
64MB Shared memory (WANTING TO CHANGE THIS)

Sound: AC '97 Audio
Network: Intel® PRO 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Modem: 56K ITU v.92-ready Fax/Modem
Peripherals: Standard Multimedia Keyboard, 2-Button Wheel Mouse, Amplified
Stereo Speakers
Ports/Other: 5 USB 2.0 ports (1 in Media Manager; 4 in back), 1 Serial, 1
Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio-In & Out
Dimensions: 7.25"W x 14.125"H x 16"D
 
J

John Boy

The information you provide does not allow
anyone to know the specifics about your
motherboard. You need a make and model to look
that information up. Did you buy the computer
from a store? Does it have a make and model
designation?

If your board does not have an AGP slot, there
is no way for you to add/install one on your
board. It's either there or it isn't!
 
D

dotcom

Ok.
Is it returnable or exchangeable for a PCI card?
There is no such thing as an AGP "reader".
Also, there is PCI and PCI express. Two different technologies.
You need to know more about your MOBO.
dotcom
 
J

John

That would be up to the store it was bought from, and next time please use
some common sense, next if your unsure make sure its compatible with your
computer before you buy something. The store doesn't have to accommodate
people who have already opened the sticker at all, and it seems you bought
this computer as a package system where somebody else built it for you so
you had no clue about your own computer.

256mb of ram is crap when running Vista so you should at least have 512 or
higher of ram available for vista to run, and you have one of those
cheap/crappy desktop systems with everything built into the motherboard so
nothing you have is very good to begin with. Systems like this don't need
vista at all, especially without any agp or epci slots, and Vista will not
improve the performance of anything on this computer vs. XP.

Ok.
Is it returnable or exchangeable for a PCI card?
There is no such thing as an AGP "reader".
Also, there is PCI and PCI express. Two different technologies.
You need to know more about your MOBO.
dotcom
 
C

Colin Barnhorst

It does not have an AGP slot. I suspect the video ram is shared ram thus
reducing your 256MB of ram by the amount allocated to video, probably by
16MB. A PCI video adaptor would have its own video memory and release the
shared ram back to the system ram. Even at 256MB however you are well below
the minimum for a basic Vista system. While you are resolving the video
issue also address the ram issue. Consult the system builder for which ram
to buy.

Best of luck to you.
 
G

Guest

John said:
That would be up to the store it was bought from, and next time please use
some common sense, next if your unsure make sure its compatible with your
computer before you buy something. The store doesn't have to accommodate
people who have already opened the sticker at all, and it seems you bought
this computer as a package system where somebody else built it for you so
you had no clue about your own computer.

256mb of ram is crap when running Vista so you should at least have 512 or
higher of ram available for vista to run, and you have one of those
cheap/crappy desktop systems with everything built into the motherboard so
nothing you have is very good to begin with. Systems like this don't need
vista at all, especially without any agp or epci slots, and Vista will not
improve the performance of anything on this computer vs. XP.

Ok.
Is it returnable or exchangeable for a PCI card?
There is no such thing as an AGP "reader".
Also, there is PCI and PCI express. Two different technologies.
You need to know more about your MOBO.
dotcom
Click to expand...
 
T

Travis King

Add a gig of RAM to your computer and since you can't get AGP, get a PCI
(not PCI express) FX5500 instead with at least 128MB of video RAM. From
what I've heard, PCI will still be able to run Glass. Depending on the
computer, you may have to disable the onboard video to get your video card
to work correctly. After doing those two upgrades, you'll probably be okay.
John said that your computer wouldn't be better in Vista than XP, but the
truth is, there are very few computers at the moment that run better in
Vista than XP due to the debugging and such. Now he is right, though that
256MB of RAM isn't going to get you very far at all in Vista. 512MB even
won't. I would recommend starting with a gig of RAM. Seeing how Vista
utilizes nearly a third of my 1.5GB of RAM, I wouldn't recommend even using
Vista with 512MB of RAM.
 
W

William R. Mosher

I have a GeForce FX5200 PCI card with 128 megabytes of RAM and it runs Glass very well.

William
Add a gig of RAM to your computer and since you can't get AGP, get a PCI
(not PCI express) FX5500 instead with at least 128MB of video RAM. From
what I've heard, PCI will still be able to run Glass. Depending on the
computer, you may have to disable the onboard video to get your video card
to work correctly. After doing those two upgrades, you'll probably be okay.
John said that your computer wouldn't be better in Vista than XP, but the
truth is, there are very few computers at the moment that run better in
Vista than XP due to the debugging and such. Now he is right, though that
256MB of RAM isn't going to get you very far at all in Vista. 512MB even
won't. I would recommend starting with a gig of RAM. Seeing how Vista
utilizes nearly a third of my 1.5GB of RAM, I wouldn't recommend even using
Vista with 512MB of RAM.
 
G

Guest

thank you guys very much. I will return the AGP card and get a PCI one. I
also have to upgrade to more RAM,l but can't I just use a 1gb USB drive
instead?
 
J

John

You are very correct about its memory usage. On a quick test with the os,
Avast AV, Browser, and Mail open in a large newsgroup like this one Vista
exceeded 1gb of memory usage on a test where I set the pagefile at the
smallest number possible, when before with XP it would take some serious
3D/Video editing to even try to max out my 1gb of memory. However the
amount of virtual disk cache is always larger when you have more system
memory unless you manually edit those settings.

So yes, 1gb is suggested for Vista at this time, however with all the
debugging code gone there should be much less memory usage, and cpu usage
making the operating system more responsive, likely closer to XPs
performance. However I still don't believe that Vista is a necessary
upgrade for most people. After all the debug is gone 512mb will probably be
a good number for most Vista Basic installs.

Add a gig of RAM to your computer and since you can't get AGP, get a PCI
(not PCI express) FX5500 instead with at least 128MB of video RAM. From
what I've heard, PCI will still be able to run Glass. Depending on the
computer, you may have to disable the onboard video to get your video card
to work correctly. After doing those two upgrades, you'll probably be okay.
John said that your computer wouldn't be better in Vista than XP, but the
truth is, there are very few computers at the moment that run better in
Vista than XP due to the debugging and such. Now he is right, though that
256MB of RAM isn't going to get you very far at all in Vista. 512MB even
won't. I would recommend starting with a gig of RAM. Seeing how Vista
utilizes nearly a third of my 1.5GB of RAM, I wouldn't recommend even using
Vista with 512MB of RAM.
 
T

Travis King

Someone I know is already planning on not getting Vista. He said I won't
buy it for just a new appearance and I can already do everything on XP just
as easily as I would be able to on Vista. Then, here's the funny part. He
goes on saying how he's resistant to change but he won't buy a new OS unless
it has major changes in it. That's pretty much exactly how he worded it.
Is it just me or does that not make sense? So anyway, back to 'DJ Tech'.
I'd get a gig of DDR RAM that is at least PC-2700 (or higher) to match your
other memory module. Now, if you get faster RAM, it will not run at any
faster speeds than PC-2700 unless you either remove the PC-2700 stick or
also replace it with a faster module.
 
J

John

It makes sense, especially after using Vista. I don't see any reason to
upgrade to Vista on this computer, unless XP Pro has become obsolete, and/or
support has been dropped with serious issues lingering, like how they
handled Win98se, my favorite 9x operating system as it still had real dos,
however it did have that user/gui memory limitation...

So he doesn't want to spend money on software which in the end does a few
things differently, and doesn't add any real functionality vs. the previous
operating system. I think of Vista like a big service pack, many people
didn't want to do XP Service Pack 2 at first due to many changes like the
security center, etc... However in the end it became mandatory with support
for XP SP1 ending. No WinFS, basically Longhorn had some real promise, and
I actually had official access to Longhorn in the alphas years ago, however
after removing many things from Longhorn what we are left with is basically
a large unofficial service pack in my opinion. I think of Vista just like
WinME, ME didn't really offer anything compared 98se that made it worth
buying, and was just another os for Microsoft to make money on, which has
been dubbed the worst MS os since the many versions of Win95, instead of
just making them service packs.

Someone I know is already planning on not getting Vista. He said I won't
buy it for just a new appearance and I can already do everything on XP just
as easily as I would be able to on Vista. Then, here's the funny part. He
goes on saying how he's resistant to change but he won't buy a new OS unless
it has major changes in it. That's pretty much exactly how he worded it.
Is it just me or does that not make sense?
 
D

dotcom

DJ TECH,
If I were you and this was my computer I wouldn't spend anymore money on it.
You have hardware upgrades and still have to purchase Vista when it's
released.
Instead I would take the bucks you are going to spend now and start saving
until January and buy a desktop with Vista pre-loaded on it. Desktops can
be had for pretty cheap now and you'd be better off even at the lower end
purchase than you are now. You've still got six months to go and maybe
longer.
dotcom
 

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