does anyone know of an 8x agp video card that does NOT burn itself and the
mobo if the molex connector is not used?
i understand that the agp standards are old and do not provide enough power
for recent gpus. but do they have to burn themselves up and the mobo as
well? can't they just put a circuit breaker?
if i buy a very good psu with protection against overvoltage etc..., will
that help?
my psu blew up at a time when i was very busy. i hooked up another psu for
a quick test. i forgot that my video card, which was installed more than a
year ago, has a molex connector. it was the most expensive smokeworks i've
ever watched ...
sharonpst wrote:
> hi all
>
> does anyone know of an 8x agp video card that does NOT burn itself and the
> mobo if the molex connector is not used?
>
> i understand that the agp standards are old and do not provide enough power
> for recent gpus. but do they have to burn themselves up and the mobo as
> well? can't they just put a circuit breaker?
>
> if i buy a very good psu with protection against overvoltage etc..., will
> that help?
>
> my psu blew up at a time when i was very busy. i hooked up another psu for
> a quick test. i forgot that my video card, which was installed more than a
> year ago, has a molex connector. it was the most expensive smokeworks i've
> ever watched ...
>
> thanks
That is not true of all cards. My ATI 9800Pro card, puts a warning message on the
monitor screen, when the connector is missing. It doesn't seem to smoke while that
is going on.
Video cards may have more than one power converter (switching regulator) onboard.
If there are two, one could be powered from the slot, and the other powered
from the auxiliary connector. And in doing so, the designers should take into
account, the scenario that the connector is missing.
A guess here, is that whatever the original failure did to the system, set
it up for the second spectacular failure. What you were viewing, may not
have been totally due to the missing connector, but to some other
complicating factor. You'd have to check where the smoke was coming
from, to formulate a theory.
On 17 Aug 2008 08:40:30 +1000, sharonpst
<sharonpst@dontspamme.com> wrote:
>hi all
>
>does anyone know of an 8x agp video card that does NOT burn itself and the
>mobo if the molex connector is not used?
>
I would've thought most wouldn't, it would be a lousy design
to have it happen merely by forgetting to plug the power
connector in and I have forgotten in the past without any
damage resulting, system just booted and the driver popped
up a box informing it was at a lower speed (which uses less
power). Which ones have you tried? I know several of the
nVidia cards run at a lower speed if it doesn't detect power
from the molex, probably anything FX5700 era and thereafter.
By thereafter I new newer, not necessarily a higher number.
For example I have no idea about FX5800 that came before it
IIRC.
>i understand that the agp standards are old and do not provide enough power
>for recent gpus. but do they have to burn themselves up and the mobo as
>well? can't they just put a circuit breaker?
>
>if i buy a very good psu with protection against overvoltage etc..., will
>that help?
No, that won't make a difference, although if your primary
problem was that the old PSU didn't shut down when it was
outputting damagingly high voltage, a new PSU with better
protection circuitry would help to prevent such damage.
>
>my psu blew up at a time when i was very busy.
So you definitely had a different part fail. I wonder if
your video card was the primary failure point due to a short
on it and this is why you later saw excessive power
consumption that damaged the slot and/or contacts. I'd also
wonder if the psu damaged the video card instead then with
it still installed you had an unfortunate secondary damage.
> i hooked up another psu for
>a quick test. i forgot that my video card, which was installed more than a
>year ago, has a molex connector. it was the most expensive smokeworks i've
>ever watched ...
If the agp slot and card are toast, it would seem a good
time to move to a PCI Express based platform instead of
buying both a board and video card that're AGP.
> hi all
>
> does anyone know of an 8x agp video card that does NOT burn itself and the
> mobo if the molex connector is not used?
>
> i understand that the agp standards are old and do not provide enough power
> for recent gpus. but do they have to burn themselves up and the mobo as
> well? can't they just put a circuit breaker?
>
> if i buy a very good psu with protection against overvoltage etc..., will
> that help?
>
> my psu blew up at a time when i was very busy. i hooked up another psu for
> a quick test. i forgot that my video card, which was installed more than a
> year ago, has a molex connector. it was the most expensive smokeworks i've
> ever watched ...
>
> thanks
The AGP video card in which you are interested doesn't come with a
4-ping to 4-/6-pin pass-through adapter cable (to let you connect the
4-/6-pin connector on the video card to a PSU 4-pin Molex connector)?
> If the agp slot and card are toast, it would seem a good
> time to move to a PCI Express based platform instead of
> buying both a board and video card that're AGP.
>
hi all
thanks for your replies. come to think of it, you guys might be right. it
could be just a coincidence, but at least five components have died in
quick succession: the pci usb card, the psu, the agp card, the mobo, the
cpu adaptor, the mobile rack, the dvd burner, one of the ribbons. well, i
should admit that my system, at 6.5 years old, already has long teeth.
the smoke comes from the agp card. i have thrown it away but i believe
it's an ati 800 with a built-in molex connector. the agp slot is toast.
but i still have a backup motherboard with an agp slot.
i will install a new agp card once i can find some written assurances
from the manufacturers that their video cards will not toast themselves
or the agp slot. otherwise, i will have to find another backup
motherboard.
On 2008-08-18, sharonpst <sharonpst@dontspamme.com> wrote:
>
> thanks for your replies. come to think of it, you guys might be right. it
> could be just a coincidence, but at least five components have died in
> quick succession: the pci usb card, the psu, the agp card, the mobo, the
> cpu adaptor, the mobile rack, the dvd burner, one of the ribbons. well, i
> should admit that my system, at 6.5 years old, already has long teeth.
Such widespread damage is almost certainly down to the PSU. If
the AGP was drawing too much current the damge would be much more
localised than that.
Andrew Smallshaw <andrews@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote in
news:slrngaitq0.1a4.andrews@sdf.lonestar.org:
> Such widespread damage is almost certainly down to the PSU. If
> the AGP was drawing too much current the damge would be much more
> localised than that.
>
if it were an el cheapo psu, i wouldn't get angry. but the psu that blew
up,as far as i can recall, was an antec 480w true power that cost me almost
A$150. it lasted less than two years, maybe 1.5 years.
anyway, my next psu will have protection against overvoltage, undervoltage
and everything else, including earthquake ...
On 18 Aug 2008 23:15:36 +1000, sharonpst
<sharonpst@dontspamme.com> wrote:
>> If the agp slot and card are toast, it would seem a good
>> time to move to a PCI Express based platform instead of
>> buying both a board and video card that're AGP.
>>
>hi all
>
>thanks for your replies. come to think of it, you guys might be right. it
>could be just a coincidence, but at least five components have died in
>quick succession: the pci usb card, the psu, the agp card, the mobo, the
>cpu adaptor, the mobile rack, the dvd burner, one of the ribbons. well, i
>should admit that my system, at 6.5 years old, already has long teeth.
I'm starting to wonder if you had an AC line surge, even a
(name brand, Antec) PSU failure doesn't tend to kill so many
parts downstream because even if it had dirty power there is
ample filtration from further capacitors in the system to
avoid such widespread damage.
>
>the smoke comes from the agp card. i have thrown it away but i believe
>it's an ati 800 with a built-in molex connector. the agp slot is toast.
>but i still have a backup motherboard with an agp slot.
I'm not so sure that the cause of the problems was as
originally suspected, I can't recall for certain but didn't
think those cards would try to take full power from the AGP
slot of the aux connector wasn't plugged in.
>
>i will install a new agp card once i can find some written assurances
>from the manufacturers that their video cards will not toast themselves
>or the agp slot. otherwise, i will have to find another backup
>motherboard.
What performance level vs price do you need? The 800 was a
fairly performance oriented gaming card for it's time. Maybe
something like a Radeon 3650? IIRC, it's power consumption
is low enough it barely even needs an aux power connector.
kony wrote:
> On 18 Aug 2008 23:15:36 +1000, sharonpst
> <sharonpst@dontspamme.com> wrote:
>
>>> If the agp slot and card are toast, it would seem a good
>>> time to move to a PCI Express based platform instead of
>>> buying both a board and video card that're AGP.
>>>
>> hi all
>>
>> thanks for your replies. come to think of it, you guys might be
>> right. it could be just a coincidence, but at least five components
>> have died in quick succession: the pci usb card, the psu, the agp
>> card, the mobo, the cpu adaptor, the mobile rack, the dvd burner,
>> one of the ribbons. well, i should admit that my system, at 6.5
>> years old, already has long teeth.
>
> I'm starting to wonder if you had an AC line surge, even a
> (name brand, Antec) PSU failure doesn't tend to kill so many
> parts downstream because even if it had dirty power there is
> ample filtration from further capacitors in the system to
> avoid such widespread damage.
>
>
>>
>> the smoke comes from the agp card. i have thrown it away but i
>> believe it's an ati 800 with a built-in molex connector. the agp
>> slot is toast. but i still have a backup motherboard with an agp
>> slot.
>
> I'm not so sure that the cause of the problems was as
> originally suspected, I can't recall for certain but didn't
> think those cards would try to take full power from the AGP
> slot of the aux connector wasn't plugged in.
>
>
>>
>> i will install a new agp card once i can find some written assurances
>> from the manufacturers that their video cards will not toast
>> themselves or the agp slot. otherwise, i will have to find another
>> backup motherboard.
>
> What performance level vs price do you need? The 800 was a
> fairly performance oriented gaming card for it's time. Maybe
> something like a Radeon 3650? IIRC, it's power consumption
> is low enough it barely even needs an aux power connector.
The 3650 does not have an aux power connector: it's not needed. It's a
very low power GPU, both power-wise and performance-wise. It's fine for
video related applications and/or older, less demanding games.
For any decent gaming, a 3850 GPU powered video card would work well.
It sells for ~$100 and can be found for less with (bad word) rebates.
It does require a aux power connector, but still isn't a power hog by
any means.
On Aug 19, 8:36*pm, "RobV" <r...@nowhere.invalid> wrote:
...
> The 3650 does not have an aux power connector: it's not needed. *It's a
> very low power GPU, both power-wise and performance-wise. *It's fine for
> video related applications and/or older, less demanding games.
>
> For any decent gaming, a 3850 GPU powered video card would work well.
> It sells for ~$100 and can be found for less with (bad word) rebates.
> It does require a aux power connector, but still isn't a power hog by
> any means.
I tried to help someone out.
I had given them an AMD 2600 512 meg w AGP Radeon 9251
128meg. Theyhave Verizon fios with a fast connection but were
seeing relatively slow performance in graphics rendering inside
Second Life.
I studied all the graphics card rankings, things like http://www.overclock.net/graphics-ca...rd-time-s.html
and others. It appeared to me that an Nvidia 7600 or an ATI
x1600 would be about two classes higher performance. I found an
ATI x1950 Pro 512 meg that looked even a little better than this
and about the top of the AGP performance range.
I tried to time rendering time before making the change. Then I
swap in the upgrade, do the driver swap, make sure the
resolution and settings are the same, and try timing the
rendering again.
It is difficult to get accurate timing inside SL, too many
things change. But the subjective timing for rendering the
screen doesn't show enough change to dependably notice, or maybe
it is just none at all.
Have I missed something? I expected 2x or so faster rendering
when I moved up two classes in ranking and I see no change.
any agp video card that does not burn mobo? 
Linear Mode
