Some good news....

[poltr1]

In order to determine the source of the "smearing problem" I'm having on my desktop computer, I hooked up my laptop to the monitor. I saw no smearing of the black lettering across the page. Therefore, it's a problem with the video card. That's much cheaper to fix than buying a new monitor.

The bad news is that I might not be able to find a replacement video card (Diamond Viper V770, I believe), unless I look on eBay. (I just did and there are several available.) The desktop system is nearly seven years old, and I can't afford a full system upgrade right now. And so I make do with what I have.

As Roseanne Roseannadanna says, "It's always somethin'."

I wouldn't mind buying "last year's model", but computer makers want to sell you the latest and greatest. When Vista rolls out to consumers in late January, will people still be able to purchase a system with XP preinstalled? I don't need or want Vista, and if I did, I'd prefer to wait until service pack 1 comes out for it.

Comments

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Do you do any gaming of any sort at all, or are you just using it as a basic internet/office station?

[poltr1]

Just the occasional game of Doom I when I'm feeling like blowing up things. So I don't need a state-of-the-art video card.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Let me dig around my parts boxes and see if I can score something suitable. If all you're playing are games like Doom, I might have an old card that would suit your needs.

[poltr1]

That'll be fine. A 7-year-old video card would be ideal for a 7-year old system.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Does that motherboard have AGP support at all? Or is it strictly PCI?

[poltr1]

I'm 90% sure it's AGP. I'd have to open the box to be 100% sure.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Video cards are fairly easy to replace, and you should be able to get a better card in there for a reasonable price. Are you firm about going with ATI, or do you not care about your chipset? Either way, check Pricewatch or TigerDirect or Newegg; all should offer fairly inexpensive options. Or even Best Buy, or ChumpCompUSA.

Good luck!

[poltr1]

I want to stick with the same maker and model because I have the drivers for it. If I bought a card from eBay, there's no guarantee it will ship with the drivers.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Almost every card has drivers online these days. If not at the official manufacturer's website, there are several different and excellent sites that serve drivers only. (I'm not in the correct profile for me to get at those bookmarks, dammit.) And certainly any card you buy from a place like TigerDirect or Best Buy would have drivers.

What sort of price range would you be willing to spring for? Even in the $30-$40 range, you can probably get a card that outclasses the old one by three times or more.

[poltr1]

I found Diamond Multimedia's download page at dmmdownload.com. And (surprise) it has the drivers for legacy equipment.

I'm still running Windows 98 SE on my box -- it's the one where I needed to replace the fan on the CPU. A new (or relatively new) video card may only have drivers for XP.

I'd probably want to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. If it will last a few years, and extend the useful life of my system, I'll be happy.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Cool. Here's Pricewatch's video card page. If autographedcat doesn't get you something suitable, you can probably find something you can use there (try clicking in the price range section, about the middle of the page).