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External graphics card for RC440BX board possible?

idata
Employee
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The ancient RC440BX motherboard (1998, don' t laugh) is well documented. However, one information is missing: Is it possible to use an external PCI graphics card? I tried an "ATI Radeon 9200 128MB / 64bit PCI card"and BIOS P14 (graphics entry changed from internal AGP to PCI) under Windows 2000, but to no avail. PC can be started in safe mode (VGA), but in normal mode during Windows boot before entering the high resolution mode the progress bar stalls.

Any hints?

Regards

ADroste

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DKnow2
Valued Contributor I
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I couldn't even get a slightly newer ATI card installed on a 440 board long ago. The battery lasts a long time, even unplugged but why bother? You have one USB port that probably won't recognize new capacities of memory. Anything older than a P4 is probably only desirable to some satellite on its way to a distant star. Look into Virtual PC or similar. I looked at one (and older) in the last year but I won't be using.

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idata
Employee
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Thanks for your response. But I must confess that I do not understand, what you want to tell me.

The board works fine in a PIII 450MHz computer with all USB functions, PCI netwok card, 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card, and under Windows 2K. The only problem is that Yfor example Youtube videos are displayed with interruptions, and in no case in full screen mode. Comparing to other computers the rochester board was far ahead of its time.

Regards

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DKnow2
Valued Contributor I
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You asked about using a card that is about 4 steps up from the ATI Rage 128 card that was current for the P3 450MHz board (using a 2006 Tom's Hardware GPU guide). I tried 1 or 2 steps up and failed but the TNT card works fine. How many add-in cards can you add? On the other side I don't use full-screen mode for most videos since the output is limited and the quality is inferior anyway. With a network card you have improved your options. That is what I meant by trying to transfer data using a USB flash drive (and one port for the adaptor-less mouse). My 450 system has CD drive issues that I can readily fix (a second time). Until I looked at the GPU guide I wasn't sure if you were speculating about an external GPU or PCI-e. The ATI 9200 is not even a PCI-e, correct? How does the data transfer rate compare to the Atom boards of today?

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idata
Employee
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As a late response I would like to share my current configuration, which works fine.

General (Computer)

Mainboard : Intel RC440BX

 

Chipsatz : Intel i440BX/ZX

 

Prozessor : Intel Pentium III @ 450 MHz

 

Physikalischer Speicher : 384 MB

 

Grafikkarte : RADEON MOBILITY 9200 (DNA 2.4.4.4)

 

Festplatte : IC35L040AVVA07-0 (41 GB)

 

Festplatte : WDC (160 GB)

 

DVD-Rom Laufwerk : TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1612

 

DVD-Rom Laufwerk : LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1673S

 

Monitortyp : MD 20094 - 25 inchs (current resolution 1920x1200 @ 60Hz in True Color (32-bit))

 

Netzwerkkarte : EN-5251 Based Fast Ethernet Adapter

 

Betriebssystem : Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional 5.00.2195 Service Pack 4

 

DirectX : Version 9.0c (September 2009)

General (Graphics Card)

 

Hersteller : ATI Technologies

 

Modell : RADEON MOBILITY 9200 (DNA 2.4.4.4)

 

Bus Type : PCI

 

Texturspeicher : 116 MB

 

Refresh Rate (min/max) : / Hz

GPU Information :

 

Anzahl GPU : 1

 

Prozessor : RV280

 

Bus : 128-bit

 

Speichertyp : 128 MB DDR

 

GPU Frequenz : 200.25 MHz - [initial : 200 MHz]

 

Speichertakt GPU : 99.56 MHz - [initial : 100 MHz]

 

DirectX Support : 8.1

 

Pixel Shader Version : 1.4

As you can see, I managed to get the card working. The problem was that Windows 2K needed some boot attempts to accept the card. Now I can switch on the computer, and as soon as Windows provisionally loads the VGA-driver during booting, the monitor comes up with the b/w DOS screen. As soon as Windows later loads the correct Win2K graphics card driver, it switches to the high resolution display.

Installing the card however brings only little performance boost in video display. The limiting factor apparently is the 450MHz Pentium III CPU, which is not able, to fill up the GPU memory quickly enough.

Regards

ADroste

Message was edited by: ADroste

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