Hi Torrentg, Thanks for your Quick reply,.. I want to use this machine for input to my 52" HDTV, and installing or Upgrading to Windows 7. I Don't want to change power supplies.
How do i check Open UnUsed slot? Can I replace the card with new one ??
It would be Appreciated for your guidance.,
thanks
sri
You can look on the back of the machine to see. Or you'd have to open the case up if you're not sure.
If you want to be completely sure, take a picture or two of the inside motherboard and attach to a post.
You're probably using onboard video now, so there is no card to "replace." You'd likely need an available open slot.
Torrentg,
Please suggest me for the above config.....Optiplex GX260.
Thanks
Sri
You definitely have an available PCI slot on the motherboard. It's the white one. But the problem is that the case will not allow that slow to be used. There's no room for it to output on the back like it needs.
So you will have to use an AGP type card. That is the available brownish slot shown. You'll need to purchase one that does not use a power connector internally because of the low-rated power supply. I'd say to look for one that doesn't have a fan too, if possible.
Imho, it's not really worth purchasing any components for a machine like this. If you did get a new AGP card though, it would help with graphics somewhat.
The problem with that though, is the chipset may not be fully supported on Vista and 7, so the AGP card may end up not working anyhow.
If you look at the backplane (3rd photo) you'll notice two blanking slots.
These are for full sized PCI slots on the riser board.
Previous post is correct that the white PCI slot next to the AGP 4x slot
is indeed half height.
But the other two are not.
For example I have a Full Size PCI Winfast T1000S card in one of my slots
and a full sized PCI StarTech 4x USB out on mine.
For me, I am still on XP SP3 (not sure I want to run Windows 7 ... I still have nightmares about Vista!).
I did however have major snags getting widescreen of the latest XP DELL drivers for the GX260.
So if you have the money, I would recommend getting a dedicated PCI card.
AGPx4 cards are like gold-dust.
I am told that you cannot put a AGPx8 into a x4 slot (ie unlike memory that will chose the slowest common speed I am told AGP wont do this).
Of course, since I have never tried this I dont know how good that advice is. But the PCI cards do work well.
Also, I only have a P4 2.0GHz processor and it struggles.
I am not RAM bound (1.5 GB on XP is fine, Vista wouldnt cope with that
not sure about Windows 7).
Having said that, if the PCI graphics card supports Direct X to the correct level for Windows 7, maybe it can take some of the workload of the CPU.
You say you want to do HMDI 1080p (I think you do ... your pictures are HD res).
So since this involves lots of mp4 decoding via H264 codec (which normally you have to buy from somewhere) AND the software versions wont necessarily use the GPU, I guess you need to do some serious research.
To be blunt, wouldnt it be cheaper (in long run) to buy a new machine and take a shotgun to the GX?
My wife uses ours for word proc/admin/email/browsing and we deliberately kept it on XP (which was a lot faster than Windows 2000).
This type of DELL was not designed with Windows 7 in mind.
A nice new machine will have PCI express, and a cheap one will have nVidia inbuilt into the motherboard.
My barebones system (150GBP for 2Gb, dual core core duo system, disk drive/OS/monitor extra) runs HDTV really fine!
Indeed, I put the TV card into the DELL and got a satellite card (that can receive HD signals) for my box.
That's when I had fun finding H264 codec and noted that some will use the GPU, others wont.
There is no way on this earth that a single core P4 could hand HD without GPU support ... well not unless it was seriously overclocked.
Good luck with your quest.
Regards
Steve H
The video card listed above is an older card. The one listed below is the same price and only a few months old. It would be a much better choice and even has an HDMI jack on it in case you decide to hook it up to a TV later on.
Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-20301-10L GeForce 210 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
Alas, the chap has a GX260.
It has 1 AGPx4 slot
1 PCI slot for low profile
2 more PCI slots full size on a riser board.
Your newer card is PCI express. It wont work.
I say that, but use CPUz (CPUID) to check out any system.
For example it confirms I have P4 478 socket 2GHz and AGPx4.
No PCI express.
I have been searching over Xmas to find an AGPx4. In UK this is very very expensive card.
So much so that I would simply buy another barebones HDMI ready PC for less than the card.
You may find a cheap one on ebay or maybe USA is less "rip off" than UK.
Regards
Steve H
Yeah I just noticed he had an Optiplex GX260 in the OP. Thanks for pointing that out. I got sidetracked when the other post above listed a PCI card. As for AGP cards, New egg has a few here.
I really have a hard time telling someone to dump any money into a system that old though. I have on old Optiplex 150 that I got as a backup in case I need to get on the net and it is running Ubuntu. It is so slow though that is all it is good for though is for going on the net. I had Windows 7 installed on it just to say I did it but took it off because of the integrated video driver compatibility issues.
To the OP, I would suggest, if you really want Windows 7 on that system to go to a computer repair shop. Not a big name one, a smaller one because they will be more likely to do this: ask them to yank an AGP card out of an old system they got kicking around. You should get one real cheap if not for free.
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