graphics cards

[Cheryl]

We have an older 5 or 6 year old homemade computer that
my boyfriend loves to play all the high graphics games on
and we have replaced everything in the computer to run
Win XP except for the keyboard, monitor, hardrive, and
motherboard. We have put a second older graphics card but
newer than the one we had. Didn't work. We tried a new
pci Nvidia MX440 SE 64 MB, and it didn't work. Now I have
an ATI Xtasy 9100 128 MB AGP, and ATI says that the AGP
slot is out dated. The motherboard is a n abit K7T with a
900 Mhz AMD Athlon processor. Do we need to replace the
motherboard? Thank you for any and all help in this
matter.

 

[Courtney]

It sounds like you have the first version of the AGP slot (Spec Version
1.0). Current cards (AGP Spec Version 2.0) not only will not work with newer
slot, they won't even fit. You can tell because the slot on the newer
motherboards appears to be backward. Note that the newer AGP slots also have
different voltage requirements and pin-outs, so older AGP cards won't work
even if you could put them in the slot.

Your only option is to upgrade the motherboard. Be aware that this may also
require an upgrade to the RAM.

Courtney sends....