graphics card crash

[timtheenchanter]

please dont laugh!

I recently decided enough was enough for my old celeron 800, whilst it still works it was just too slow.
So I raided the parts bin at work, and now have a 1.75Ghz Athlon, 1Gb Ram, with XP, nothing fantastic, but a huge improvement.

I also put in a GeForce4 MX440 gaphics card, mainly for its s-video out. however it semd to slow the system down, and the card (not the machine) would crash and not come back on until I shut off the machine the not nice way and re-booted, I know only the graphics crashed as any network activity would carry on, as would the HDD light.

IIRC the PSU is only 350W so is this the cause of the gaphics issue, or is the card dead? ive swapped back to onboard and it seem fine (fingers crossed)

Oh, other stuff in the machine, are 2 HDDs, 1 CDburner, DVD-rom and an audigy2 platinum sound card that does need a power input, however the graphics only drew power from the bus.

 

[mattylad]

Your most likely to need a bigger PSU.

 

[Deluks]

Your most likely to need a bigger PSU.

I wouldn't have thought it for a Geforce MX 440, unless the psu is a real cheap POS. I used to have one of these cards (probably still got it somewhere!) requires little power. I ran it on a decent 250w PSU.

What I don't get is the idea of the card slowing the machine down, if anything it should free up memory compared to onboard graphics and speed things up a tad. (don't rule out it being the memory at fault either)

Firstly, unplug the audigy and secondary hard drive. Then try again, decreasing the load on the PSU might sort it.

Then I'd suggest trying different video drivers, and replacing the card (AGP cards are cheaper than a new half-decent PSU)

Could even be the AGP slot on the mobo, no way to know for certain without trial and error, that's the problem with geriatric frankenstein computers.

 

[TonyWarrington]

As it works ok with onboard graphics have you checked in the BIOS to see if there is the facility to disable on board graphics?

It is possible that your system does not automatically disable on board when you insert card into AGP slot, this may be causing some conflicts when 2 graphics systems running