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PowerEdge T110, Win2K3 Standard x86 SP2 - Best Compatible Video Card?
Our PoS server, a T110 running Windows 2003 x86 SP2 Standard, is our main interface for most of our business day-to-day. But because the onboard video is just impossible to use normally, we added an older Radeon PCI-express card to supplement. However, it's still not quite enough - at least not like it used to. When running a dual monitor setup on HDMI and DVI, on a 1920x1600 and a 1600x1200, there's a lot of jittery motion when dragging windows (it wasn't like this before). We don't do any high end graphics, just A LOT of Microsoft Excel, huge spreadsheets, and multiple Windows to update PLU databases, print shelf labels, and the like. My issue is that most video cards do not explicitly list Windows 2003 as a compatible OS.
Given our OS and server type, what's the best compatible video card we should expect to work on this system? The current video card is Radeon 4300. It worked pretty well at the beginning, but after 3 years of 24 hour use, I think it's reaching its breaking point.
skylarking
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April 5th, 2013 03:00
NVS cards are designed for financial business, multi panel displays, etc and not for gaming, hence the market is smaller than the gaming market which results in the higher price. It's not so much that it's old tech, just tech for specific business needs, primarily focused on multi monitor 2D display tech. You could look at a Quadro card but these are also expensive though more targeted at engineering and video rendering markets, lots of memory and 3D render capabilities but it will cost you. I'm not sure if Quadro drivers for Server 2003 are supported.
The NVS300 i think is the cheapest NVS card around.
Otherwise you could look your current setup and whether you have graphics driver issues with your two monitor setup. If the problem started around the time you have updated drivers, then you could roll back to an older driver revision and see if this may solve your issue. Otherwise, it may indeed be a hardware fault with the graphics card or the mobo itself, who knows...
It's also important to remember that graphics cards are not supported by Dell on the T110 so there will not be any graphics card PEG connector to feed power to the card. The Dell T110 server does not have a graphics capable slot so it's again important to note that Dell states that each cards within a PCIe slot can only draw 25W of power max, not the 75W that many gaming cards will draw (and a graphics capable PCIe slot can provide).
Again NVS295 has a low 23W power draw and avoids other collateral issues...
Remember that the cost of fault diagnosis on your POS system and the associated inconvenience of working outside business hours needs to be balanced against the cost of purchasing and installing a new card and drivers.
htc2010
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April 5th, 2013 02:00
Just a quick search, I realize how old PCIe is ... Newegg did not give me many possibilities of an upgrade. So I'm looking toward the Radeon HD 6450, which looks like it uses the same ATI driver I'm currently using. It just seems so hit and miss with this OS and hardware configuration. I recall sticking in another video card a year ago, and the driver support was just horrendous (although I forget what card it was). Any recommendations other than something Radeon based?
skylarking
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April 5th, 2013 02:00
It sounds like you need a good business level multi-monitor capable card supported under Windows Server 2003 SP, not a 3D game card.
Nvidia NVS series graphics cards are multi-monitor beasts designed for financial trading, digital signage, etc, and they support Win Server 2003 x86.
The NVS510, for example, can support 4 miniDP connected monitors @ 3840x2160 has a fan and consumers 35W , while the NVS 295 supports 2x DP connected monitors @ 2560x1600 and has no fan only consuming 23W.
You can use mDP->DP and then DP->DL-DVI adapters and then possibly DP->HDMI adapters to connect both your existing monitors.
htc2010
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April 5th, 2013 02:00
Oh wow, the pricing on the NVS is way up there. Above and beyond what those Radeon cards are going for. I am within a budget of anything under $100, so the NVS 510 is kind of out of out of reach. Based on my search, it looks like this is old tech or niche tech. Newegg only shows 4 NVS cards supporting PCIe 16x with the NVS 300 being the only one within price. Should this pretty much correct my ghosting/choppiness issues while moving between spreadsheets and database windows? Anything else I should look into?
Many Thanks in Advance!
htc2010
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April 5th, 2013 09:00
That's very enlightening, thank you. No wonder I kind of lucked out with that Radeon 4300 and have been able to use it for so long - it is at the 25W max. And actually, drivers have been exactly the same since our installation. Just lately, it's getting jittery. Based on that, I'm going to switch over to a NVS 300 since it is well within budget. It also frees up an additional PCIe slot since the Radeon's heatsink is so massive it blocks it. I can finally go and do that upgrade I've been wanting to do ...