What is a good 2D video card for a Asus AV8?

[Wayne Fulton]

I bought a new Matrox G550 video card for a Asus AV8 motherboard. It
seemed the perfect choice for me as I've had previous Matrox cards that
were all fantastic. The G550 seemed really fine too, up until XP SP2 is
installed, and then it wont boot. Matrox apparently has no solution.
I think it works OK in some boards with SP2, but not the AV8 or MSI K8N
(from Matrox forum). I'm using it now with just SP1, but I must replace
it so I can get on with things.

Sharp clear 2D text is the most important thing to me, with one each
VGA/DVI output if possible. Speed is not important. I dont need specs
for 3D or games, and would strongly prefer a board without a fan on it.
4X AGP is fine.

All the other choices seem to be some form of Nvidia or ATI Radeon
board, of which there are many variations, all with goals I dont need.
My understanding is that these trade sharpness for speed? There are
older Radeon 7000 cards and such, surely sufficient, but I worry if they
would be another dead end card, for example if 64 bit drivers would be
available in the future when needed. Are these still supported?

Any suggestions for a good 2D AGP card for under $100?
Thanks

 

[Ender.Wiggin]

Wayne,

You are wasting your money buying another card. I would just wait until
either a new BIOS, new graphics drivers or whatever else is released
that will overcome this compatibility issue. Note that this issue may
not neccesarily be caused/repaired by the graphics drivers. And
considering that you are already happy with Matrox products, the
solution is simple - stay with all three (MB, G550 and SP1) and simply
install the security benefits of SP2 via a free software firewall (Zone
alarm, Sygate, etc.), a free spyware tool (Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, etc.),
and a free securer browser (Mozilla Firefox, which provides popup and
activeX protection).

I bought a new Matrox G550 video card for a Asus AV8 motherboard. It

seemed the perfect choice for me as I've had previous Matrox cards that
were all fantastic. The G550 seemed really fine too, up until XP SP2 is
installed, and then it wont boot. Matrox apparently has no solution.