Sam wrote:
I have a Gateway GT5453E computer with a Gateway ECS MCP61-P AM2
Mother Board (on board NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nforce 430 128mb
Video. I am getting tired to having to disconnect the vga wire from
my monitor to then connect to the plasma. I would like my plasma to
be permanently connected via vga cable to my computer. I was hoping
to put in a used video card I had, as a second video card to to the
trick. But for some reason, when I tried to install two different
pci video cards, my computer would not recognize them. Are the older
video not compatible, if so I would buy a new one. Or is that not
the best option either. Would disabling the on board video card, and
buying a video card with dual output be the better option? You would
think having two video cards would work better since they both have
their own processors doing the work. I am not looking for state of
the art video card, just something that will do the job and not cost
too much. What would you recommend? Thanks
The board should have been able to interface to a PCI video card.
But the thing is, PCI has a bandwidth of 133MB/sec, which is pretty
slow. If you had a big bitmap on the screen to update, it could be
slow. (I've tested that on a computer here. With a PCI video card,
a lot of stuff actually works pretty well. What doesn't work well,
is poorly written software that redraws its window over and over
again. The window "stutters" as it is moved across the screen.)
http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERB...06157Rnv.shtml
Now, you do have a nicer slot on the motherboard. The big orange
connector is PCI Express. That will allow a modern video card
to be used. If the wiring of the slot is x16, the bandwidth
is 4000MB/sec, and is much faster than PCI. And it wouldn't
take too much of a video card, to exceed the performance of
the 6150.
PCI Express video cards can range up to a few hundred watts of
power consumption. The low end cards are under 25 watts. Your
computer power supply, must have the capacity to provide that
power. Chances are, a lower end video card will run in there
without a problem.
When a PCI Express video card has no auxiliary power connector,
and gets all its power from that orange slot, the card can draw
up to about 48 watts. (The standard allows 75W to be
drawn, but for practical reasons, the engineers seem to limit
their designs to around that number or maybe a few watts more.)
You can have a look at a site like this, to get a feeling for
some potential products to use.
http://www.gpureview.com/videocards.php
9400 GT example here. Don't count on the rebate. There is no
PCI Express auxiliary 2x3 power connector on the end of the
card, so it is limited to 50W or less.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130389
Product has two DVI connectors, but comes with two DVI to VGA
adapter plugs. So you can run two VGA monitors if you want,
from the faceplate of the video card.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-130-389-S05?$S640W$
More promotional info here.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product...9400gt_us.html
HTH,
Paul