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Dell Dimension 8300 AGP or PCI video card ?
Hello I'm hoping for some advice on what to do with my Dell Dimension 8300 from 2003. The machine has been through 2 or 3 video cards in its life and the latest was a nvidia Ge Force FX5500 AGP 8X. I have recently installed a new copy of Windows 7 on this machine and although it seems to work fine the Graphics card doesn't go beyond 1280 x 1024. Also the windows experience index is only reading 1.0 due to the graphics card, I think. I'm also having some problems when playing DVD's in VLC which won't let me pause movies without crashing but will play them if I don't pause them. Would another card be beneficial for my Dell? I was thinking of this one..
The EVGA GF 6200 512MB 64 bit GDDR2 AGP 8X
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-130-452&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=false&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=false&IsFeedbackTab=true&EnableProductReviewAjax=false&Page=8#scrollFullInfo
Are there any other areas I should be looking at to improve things?
ceptor
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February 11th, 2014 17:00
Thanks rdunnill, I re-installed the PCI Zotac card GeForce GT610 and now it works perfectly. I did a WEI test and its gone from 1.0 up to 4.1. I can also play DVD's on windows media player and pause and play without any crashing. Thank you very much for the help in getting the problems sorted. My Dell now has a new lease of life.
So in summary it turned out to be the BIOS that needed updating to A07
rdunnill
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January 26th, 2014 21:00
I suggest a modern PCI video card, like the Zotac GT610. This GPU has support for modern video codecs like h.264 and VC-1, which the prehistoric 6200 lacks.
There are no modern GPUs available in AGP.
ceptor
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January 26th, 2014 22:00
Rdunnill thanks for the reply. I thought that these older machines were limited to using AGP cards. So I can use a PCI card in this Dell?
rdunnill
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January 26th, 2014 23:00
Yes, you can use a PCI card (with a modern GPU) in an 8300. Note that the NVidia cards are the best option for video playback on AGP machines, because the ATI/AMD PCI driver disables DXVA acceleration.
ceptor
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January 27th, 2014 01:00
Would I need a 512mb or a 256mb card. My 8300 has 4GB of RAM but only 3GB are recognised by the O/S. What about this nVidia card with 512mb
http://tinyurl.com/m9fctw
rdunnill
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January 27th, 2014 08:00
512mb is better if you update to a high-resolution monitor.
The card you linked to has an ancient GPU.
rdunnill
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January 27th, 2014 16:00
Good to hear, and I think the Zotac has an onboard HDMI audio device in case your monitor has built-in speakers.
ceptor
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January 27th, 2014 16:00
Thanks for the advice, I've ordered a Zotac GeForce 610 512MB for my Dell Dimension 8300 and once it arrives and fitted I'll get back to the thread and let you know the result. I am actually using a late model Dell ST2420L monitor at the moment so I'm hoping resolution will improve and allow me to watch DVD's again as well.
ceptor
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February 8th, 2014 02:00
OK so I fitted the Zotac PCI card and I haven't had much luck so far. I installed the card and started the computer and the graphics was very poor and the display was at approx 800 x 400 resolution (looked like a safe mode screen). I then loaded the card driver and there was no difference as the card wasn't recognised. The device manager was saying the computer didn't have enough resources to run the card. I think it said code 12.
I tried using the HDMI cable and also the dvi cable again no change. I think it said the monitor is not connected to an nvidia card? I also tried moving the card to another free PCI slot and again no change.
After a bit further messing I fitted an EVGA nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP card which loaded up and seems to be running a little better than the prviously fitted nvidia GeForce FX5500. The Windows Experience Index number is now 3.0 and not 1.0 it was reading with the FX5500 card. However although I can play dvd's if I try to pause them the program will lock up.
Any ideas on what I can do now to try and fix this issue.
ceptor
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February 8th, 2014 15:00
Further to my last post I've now had to remove the EVGA 6200AGP card and am now back using my original FX5500. The computer failed to boot up on the EVGA 6200 512mb AGP card and I was getting an Alert! message stating that boot up had stopped at checkpoint [cMPt] and later after further attempts it stopped at checkpoint [PnP1] and I needed to contact Dell technical. This was all very worrying!
After more attempts to get the computer to load Windows I replaced the 11 year old cmos battery, re-seated all the cards and uninstalled the nvidia graphics drivers and am now reusing the standard VGA graphics adapter from Windows. So I'm now back where I started. But at least the machine is working. I ran the WEI and the score is back down to 1.0
I did notice that the power supply in the machine is 250W. Could this be the reason for the problems I'm having?
edit...My Bios version is A01
ceptor
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February 10th, 2014 21:00
I still haven't summoned up the nerve to have another go at this... If I were to update the BIOS would I have to add the files sequentially ie AO2,3,4,5,6 then AO7 I ask because all the files are of a similar size. Also is updating BIOS something to be wary of?
rdunnill
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February 10th, 2014 21:00
You need to upgrade the BIOS to use the Zotac; it shouldn't be risky, provided there are no thunderstorms or other possible sources of power outages.
Someone else with an 8300 encountered this issue, and a BIOS fix was the answer.
rdunnill
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February 10th, 2014 21:00
Zotac GT610 won't work in Dimension 8300
ceptor
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February 11th, 2014 11:00
I've downloaded the A07 file to the desk top but when I try to click on it I get..
'Flash Access denied. Please make sure you are logged in as an Administrator then try restarting the application'.
I'm using Windows 7 on my machine how should I log in as an administrator or should I load the file onto a floppy disc instead?
rdunnill
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February 11th, 2014 13:00
You should be running this from DOS-booted media. Does your 8300 have a floppy drive?
There is an HP utility available that will format USB flash drives for DOS-booting; such drives work well for this purpose. Seven Forums has a tutorial and the needed files, including DOS. Windows will format a DOS-bootable floppy, but not a flash drive.