New build PC help

northern_munky

I posted on here a few weeks back, my PC kept randomly switching itself off, it got worse and worse till it wouldn't switch on, turns out the processor had burnt out (it was running at 150 degrees)

Anyway, I'm feeling very proud of myself, I bought a new motherboard, processor, memory and power supply and fitted the lot. I formatted the hard drive & loaded XP back on. Its all gone well but I have a couple of questions.

1. I like my display size as 800x600 but it wont allow me to use this, I have tried the settings and even though it lists it and allows me to select it as soon as it refreshes it changes it to 640x480 which is huge so I'm using 1024x768 but thats too small.

2. My new motherboard has built in sound and graphics but I have put my Soundblaster card in and that works, but my graphics card is a Geforce2MX and the motherboard instructions say it needs to be +1.5V spec (I dont know what my card is) does anyone know if my Geforce card will work or will it cause damage if I tried it?

Any help appreciated

frestuffwooo

All gfx cards ( to my knowledge) have the same voltage. As for your resoltion your onboard gfx or your monitor may not suppor that resolution but should if it does 640x480 an 1024x768.

frestuffwooo

All gfx cards ( to my knowledge) have the same voltage. As for your resoltion your onboard gfx or your monitor may not suppor that resolution but should if it does 640x480 an 1024x768.

Yazza

northern_munky wrote:

I posted on here a few weeks back, my PC kept randomly switching itself off, it got worse and worse till it wouldn't switch on, turns out the processor had burnt out (it was running at 150 degrees)

Anyway, I'm feeling very proud of myself, I bought a new motherboard, processor, memory and power supply and fitted the lot. I formatted the hard drive & loaded XP back on. Its all gone well but I have a couple of questions.

1. I like my display size as 800x600 but it wont allow me to use this, I have tried the settings and even though it lists it and allows me to select it as soon as it refreshes it changes it to 640x480 which is huge so I'm using 1024x768 but thats too small.

2. My new motherboard has built in sound and graphics but I have put my Soundblaster card in and that works, but my graphics card is a Geforce2MX and the motherboard instructions say it needs to be +1.5V spec (I dont know what my card is) does anyone know if my Geforce card will work or will it cause damage if I tried it?

Any help appreciated

If your motherboard only accepts 1.5v AGP cards, then either your gfx card will slot in (correct type) or it won't (incorrect). The different types of AGP sockets had "notches" to differentiate between the different versions of the AGP standard. If it plugs in (there are no "notches" in the way") then it should work and there is no reason that it can damage anything.
Make sure after you plug it in, you go straight into BIOS and "disable onboard video", so that it uses the plug-in card, instead of the onboard one.
Then go to nvidia.com and download the latest drivers for your card - that should solve the problem about which resolutions you can choose.

bergy2

i wonder if there is a graphics card program running and often say if its nvidia it is down bottom left taskbar - perhaps the graphics settings need to be done there rather than at desktop? Usually its merged in though so doubt it

MajorR

All gfx cards ( to my knowledge) have the same voltage. As for your resoltion your onboard gfx or your monitor may not suppor that resolution but should if it does 640x480 an 1024x768.

oh no they dont!

sorry im in the panto mood :j
there are types of 3.3V, 1.5V & 0.8V plugging the wrong one into the wrong slot will fried the motherboard. i know cause i've done it, because when the 1.5V first came out not all the manufactors of gfx cards and motherboards put that nice little notche that yazza mention to stop you plugging the wrong the card to the wrong board. Your card is a Geforce2MX and the website i looked at says its a 1.5V card

http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html

northern_munky

Thanks for all of the replies, that website was great. I have put my card in and all is well, :T