Hey guys,

I need help, I had my computer shipped by fedex from Bellingham to Kansas City and it isnt working! I had it surrounded by bubble wrap, inside a box just big enough to hold it. That box was surrounded by peanuts and put in a bigger box.

Anyway, when I first turned it on when it got here the screen was almost full of font sized boxes, some had staticy lines and some were red,green, or blue. Then towards the end of the boot sequence it would have a very quick error message and reboot. So I opened her up and wiggled the video card, made sure it was in the mother board slot good and that the power supply cord was in tight. Thing is, I've always been overly gentle with inner computer parts so I dont know if I put it in tightly enough at all.

But after I did that and restarted it had less squares and the boot sequence seemed more stable. However, (I have xp) when it should load up the log on screen I just get a black screen and it stays there.

As you know, There is no way I can know how they treated it's box but Im sure it must have gotten jerked around a bit and, god forbid, DROPPED! :sad: However I hope not, please if you know of anything that could be wrong tell me PLEASE!

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Could be a lot of different things. It would be good to run something like memtest86+ to rule out the RAM. Everything that goes through your computer goes through your RAM, so a problem there can cause all sorts of things to go wrong. Next thing I would try would be to put a different video card in that computer and see if it works, the problem with that is if you don't have another video card of the same slot type you'd either have to borrow one from a friend or buy a cheap one.

Good luck finding the problem.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and was it anti-static bubble wrap? If it wasn't you might have fried your computer with static electricity.

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o

Bios Could be gone get it reflashed

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Why Do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties

Well Im not sure, but the fed ex guy is the one that wraped it up. Plus I used it up in Bellingham with the same packaging I sent it back in. It was only on the way back.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Its usually a good idea to fill the computer with peanuts or something, especially if you have any heavy cooling gear in there. Check all the connections, make sure they are in tight. It sounds possible that your motherboard is damaged, take a close look at it and see if there are any scratches.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Im guessing something got magnatized or worse during the shipping

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Why Do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties

That box was surrounded by peanuts and put in a bigger box.

Its usually a good idea to fill the computer with peanuts or something, especially if you have any heavy cooling gear in there.

Can peanuts be used to package computer parts? Never knew. :biggrin: Is this common? Never seen or heard of it before.

As for what could be wrong with you're comp, I have no idea. Good luck nonetheless.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

I guess they're talking about the soft white bits you throw in to dampen the shock that look like peanuts, but aren't. :smile:

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

This might, or might not be your problem. We will assume until proved otherwise however that it is.

Since the advent of the terrorism 911, they have been adding Xray machines at trucking weigh stations. (This is what I have been told, I cannot confirm this but I have seen the big apparatus many times that is supposed to scan your loads) I have no idea the effect of Xrays on computers but I imagine that its not a good thing.

I would hope that you told FedEx that you had computer components for delivery?

Anyway, if it went through a scanner, you may not like the outcome.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Orpheus said:
This might, or might not be your problem. We will assume until proved otherwise however that it is.
Since the advent of the terrorism 911, they have been adding Xray machines at trucking weigh stations. (This is what I have been told, I cannot confirm this but I have seen the big apparatus many times that is supposed to scan your loads) I have no idea the effect of Xrays on computers but I imagine that its not a good thing.
I would hope that you told FedEx that you had computer components for delivery?
Anyway, if it went through a scanner, you may not like the outcome.

I don't think that'll be a problem. People x-ray laptops at the airport all the time, and with the sheer number of computers getting delivered daily, I'm sure if x-rays were a problem most of us would have heard about it / been warned about it.

UPDATE****

Ok I took it to the guy that made my computer and confirmed that somehow my video card is broke. I dont even know it got broken cuz it looks fine. Anyway, so now I have a radeon X1600 pro with 512 mb of memory. I saw a Gforce 6800 at the store for 199$ and the radeon that I got was exactly the same price. The sales guy said that the radeon was the equlivent of a gforce 7300 so I thought I was getting a deal. Was I jipped? Do you think I should exchange it for the gforce?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Does the computer boot fine now with the new video card?

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http://maze5.net

yup, everything's fine exept the new card sux compared to my old one. I think I may exchange it for the equily priced 6800. Ugg I thought I was done with this computer crap.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

My 9800ATI went out recently. It gave no warning at all. I just rebooted and it beeped a few times.

My computer refused to boot up. I suppose that video is now part of the boot up procedure.

In times past the machines would boot anyway, you'd just have no monitor when it was done.

Now, if I could only resolve this damnedable modem issue.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

The new Gforce 6800 is actually made by a company I've never heard of before called Inland, thier site is here.

http://www.inlandcraft.com/

does anyone have any experiance with these guys that can tell me if they make good cards? Will performance suffer at all because of it being made by this company?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

I suppose any company can make a lemon. My 9800 was made by a generic company and it lasted just over a year before it quit.

IMO, any 6800 is better than no 6800.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

true, but I dont have the money to buy a new one every year.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

The brand inland is okay its just geniric I have had no problems with them in the past but i would order a video card online at newegg.com or zipzoomfly.com for a better deal and better selection

well Im forced to get this one cuz its an exchange.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

** UPDATE **

Ok gang, I went up to Micro Center today where I got that crappy Radeon X1600 pro video card and they said I had 30 days to RETURN it! Also, while I was there I asked a salesman if that Inland brand 6800 card was good and he said "no they are pieces of crap." So I figured that I will return it and buy a card somewhere else.
While I searching the Circuit City site I stumbled across this.
Shorter link
It's a 7800 and it's cheaper then what I bought the Radeon for! However I dont want it to turn out to be a crap card, so my question to you is, is EVGA a good reliable brand name? Do they make quality cards?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

first thing: that's a 7600.
second thing: eVGA is a "lowend" brand. Not saying it wont work or that it wont last, but they're not known for it or anything.

I would suggest looking online too, as it's generally cheaper. And getting something with a good warranty is always a plus (You can deal with the manufacturer directly if anything goes wrong)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

This is where I suggest newegg/

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
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I would only buy from Circuit City, Best Buy, etc as a last resort, the prices at places like that tend to be a lot higher than many other online stores

Assuming you reside in the US, video cards at Newegg, at ZipZoomFly, at TigerDirect. Newegg has good prices on most things, ocassionally they have really good deals. ZZF has good prices and free shipping on a lot of stuff. TigerDirect is the king of mail-in rebates in the world of online PC parts, if you don't mind waiting a few weeks to get your rebate money back they have some really good deals.

eVGA 7600 GS AGP at:
TigerDirect for $140 after $20 rebate + S&H dependant on location
ZipZoomFly for $136 after $20 rebate w/ free shipping
Newegg for $143, no rebate, and $5.64 S&H

I've bought items from all three of those stores, and will continue to do so in the future. One warning is the UPS shipping from newegg can be flakey sometimes, they have a higher package "fatality rate" than when they used Fedex.

EDIT: And use URL tags for links that long.
EDIT2: PriceGrabber is also helpful.

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o

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>first thing: that's a 7600.</DIV></DIV>

Wait, is'nt the 7600 newer and faster then the 6800? I would like to get a 6800 or higher for 199$ or less however I want it to be a reliable card.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Ok Im getting frusterated and confused, From what Im hearing it sounds like for some reason a 7600 is older then a 6800. I went to Newegg and they are all made by these different brands and I have no idea which ones are good brands and which are crap.

Does anyone know the old to new list of Gforces? I guess I dont know what is new or not. I thought the higher the number the higher the power. Am I wrong?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Crono's just pointing out that its a 7600 because in your previous post you said it was a 7800.

No, you're not wrong. The higher the number the "faster" it is. The first number is the generation though, as you might have guessed, 7xxx, is the seventh generation of GeForce cards. And yeah, you said 7800 and linked to a 7600.

Let's see ... I can give you some links though. $199, total, or less for a good, reliable card, with lots of warranty.

You seem to be interested in GeForce cards, so I'll stick to that. Feel free to browse these sites yourself, of course.

The only issue is, you want AGP, since it's being phased out, it's actually getting to be more expensive than PCI-E cards.

BFG GF7600 GS 512MB ($149.99 + $5.64)

I'm not vouching for BFG, I don't know much about them. I don't see any warranty information either. You might want to look into that and if you're ever really concerned with that you can purchase newegg warranty. However, they do charge for any sort of replacement (15%). And the warranty it self is $30 to $50 for 1 or 2 years.

On the up side, that's a 512MB video card for less than $200. Yes, this should be able to play anything you throw at it that is currently out.

XFX GF7600 GS 512MB ($153.99 + $5.64)

All of the above comments apply to this card as well.
But, this card seems to have HD support. Not sure if the other card does (it says it has HDTV out, but says nothing about hardware support)

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=326049

Same as the first card, just cheaper (free shipping. Also, zipzoomfly has the option of $1.99 shipping, if you want it there pretty quick, select that)

That seems to be it. I really wouldn't suggest getting a 256MB card, because, it wont be much cheaper and this should be the last AGP card you buy, so go out with a bang.

As long as the hardware lasts on these cards, there should be no issue when it comes to games (until DX10 games start coming out, of course)

There was a MSI 7600GS also, and while MSI has nice warranties (usually 3 years) the card has less features (no HD support). The XFX seems like the best "deal" here. Again, the options are limited because of the memory size (which I suggest being very large so the card has longevity) and the slot type.

And, lastly, put that damn link into an url tag so the page doesn't have horizontal scroll. Please.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

okay let me clear some stuff up for you crono
1.BFG is a great brand they offer lifetime warrenties on most of there products
2.HDTV support just means it has a TV break out box
and personally i like the brand EVGA you can still get agp cards from them so check those out at newegg or zipzoom

I know what HDTV processing is. Sometimes, if something says "HDTV Out" (as the BFG card does) all it means is that there's a component out hookup. I'm sure both can render HD, I just saw some differences in the specs when it came to that, so I mentioned it.

Lifetime warranty? Where does it say that? I doubt anyone would give a lifetime warranty on a video card. By all means, prove me wrong.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

BFG do indeed do lifetime warranty. Dunno about in the US but here in the UK they are one of the biggest card manufacturers (at least for nVidia), and certainly one of the most respected. I'd buy a BFG in an instant.

http://www.bfgtech.com/about_redux.html

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Thank you all for the help, especially Crono for the searching thanks man. Sorry for kinda getting edgy back there, it was lite and I should have been in bed. That BFG card sounds very good, I believe that is the one. One of the system requirements Im not sure about.

"An available hard disk drive power dongle (smaller floppy disk drive connector is not sufficient)"

Is that the standard power cord with the four prongs that go to the CD drive, Hard drive, ect? If so then I used the same thing on my 6800.

"An AGP compliant motherboard. Some motherboards violate the AGP specification and therefore this card may not physically fit in some systems"

what exactly is this saying?

Oh and one more thing, it is saying that it needs a "A minimum 350W system power supply (with 12V current rating of 20A or more)" is this worth checking on? Or is this the standard power supply?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

I haven't bought a packaged computer for years and so buy my own power supplies, so I'm afraid I can't help you out on what is standard. The good news is that it is normally very simply to check what you have. Take the side of your PC off and you should be able to read a label on the PSU that tells you the wattage. If the label is hidden you might need to take out the PSU but you can probably manage that without disconnecting all of its cables from your PC components - just remember to pull out the main power cord before you go faffing around in there :smile: I'd say it is worth checking as I imagine a lot of packaged PC's ship with fairly low-end PSU's. If yours isn't powerful enough your system will probably be unstable and you may have trouble getting video output (if it works there may well be graphical issues) - I know that happened to me many years ago.

The hard drive power connector it requires will be the same 4-pin connector used on the 6800, so no worries there.

The talk about the AGP compliant motherboard is probably just covering their bases, but if I recall correctly there are two different forms of AGP slot (one for the slower 1x/2x, and the other for the more modern 4x/8x speed) and one is larger than the other. If the card is an 4x/8x card (which it certainly will be if its anything near new) it probably wouldn't fit in a motherboard with only a 1x/2x slot. I think this is probably a complete non-issue for anything bought in recent years.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

No problem, it only took a couple minutes. I would suggest the BFG if it has a warranty like that. I might even look into one myself. I'm just wondering about efficiency (personally).

I think the difference is AGP 4x/8x vs AGP Pro 4x/8x.
Other than that, the only difference between a 2x and a 8x is the speed of the bus that connects to the slot. I haven't ever used one before, though, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's just a slot thing (also I have a 2x card lying around here that works in my 8x slot) The numbers are a multiplication of speed on the bus. I'm not sure how they do it, but it supposedly works the same way, but each one is however many times faster.

I think "pro" adds some more pin connections so more data can be sent and retrieved from the card.

The power dongle (as they are rarely referred to) is pretty standard. Most newer power supplies actually have a connector to switch to the smaller four pin version used for floppies, since they're rarely used. So, I wouldn't worry much about this, if all your plugs are used up, you can always buy a splitter and that is very cheap ($2 at the most)

Checking if you have a 350W power supply, however, is very important. I would imagine so, since you had a pretty high powered card before (right?) But, checking would be a very good idea, if it isn't ... well, you have to buy a new power supply, no way around that. (I doubt this though, especially if the computer is fairly new, around 2 years old, it should have at least a 300 to 350W power supply) To check it: open the computer and read the output wattage of the power supply. Simple as that. I'm sure there are some programs out there, though, that can tell you also.

Have fun. Get the $1.99 shipping from ZipZoomFly, it's worth it.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Ok Im really planning on getting the BFG from Newegg, unfortunatly here comes my friend and scares me about 'those' shipping risks. He said two of his friends hot cards from them that didnt work O_O! Also he said that most of the stuff from Newegg is used, is this true!? If something does arrive broken what is the deal with that? Do you get another? Your money back?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

No. It'll say "refurbished", "Open Box", or something like that if it's used.

If something arrives broken, you can get a replacement, but they charge a 15% restocking fee. However, if the item has a nice warranty, you can deal with the manufacturer (BFG, in this case) and get a replacement from them directly, which will only cost you shipping (usually).

I suggest reading the site's conditions just so none of this is a surprise to you.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Actuatly, if it arrives damaged, newegg will replace it for free. You have to talk to customer support, but when my motherboard came damaged, I was able to get a new one.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Thanks again guys for the quick replys and stuff. By the way I found out my power supply has an output of 420 Watts so Im good there.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Lest we forget. In the US, its a pretty good idea to search Pricewatch.

You can get many great deals and some free shipping as well anyplace in the lower 48. (I assume all 50 but cannot say for certain.)

If you cannot find a great deal at Pricewatch, I dunno where you can.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

thank you Orph.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Well the BFG card Crono told me about has been bought. I will keep you guys updated and tell you when it gets here.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Did you confirm the warranty? I would suggest doing that. I'm sure it's true, but I've never seen explicit "Lifetime Warranty" labeling except on that link to BFG's site and that was general. Make sure the card you bought is 'warranted'

Have fun with the new card :smile:

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

For all you canucks there's www.pricenetwork.ca for price matching stuff. Personally I'd never buy anything from a Best Buy type location at least here, I only use smaller shops as well as NCIX.ca (which is actually local to me, but big for 'net orders.)

I had a huge computer death last week and it has cost me some fair coin to get back running. (Motherboard had bad caps, they were bulgy and fuzzy.)

Ok guys, according to the estimate the card should arrive tomorrow, Im excited. I just have one last question, I was talking to someone about uninstalling the old drivers and HE said that I should wait and install the new card and drivers and see if they work first. Is this truly the best way to go? He said that if windows doesnt automatically uninstall the old drivers then I should still be able to delete them anytime after is THIS true?

I wait for thee oh sweet hardware.........

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

If i remeber correctly AGP Pro was very rarely actually used i cant even remember any really popular cards that had it as an option

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Why Do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties

I believe it was mainly used in servers.

The BFG lifetime warranty is on all cards IIRC, you do the RMA directly through them. I have a BFG 6800 Ultra, which I almost RMA'd something like 6 months after the Tigerdirect warranty was up, but the issue turned out to be faulty drivers (or it might have been an under-powered power supply). After a few obligatory trouble-shooting emails to and from BFG tech support they gave me the address and instructions on how to send the card in for inspection/repair/replacement. The thing about having a lifetime warranty is that the mean time between failures on the cards means in most cases they'll be nearly-obsolete relics by the time they give up the ghost. Like a Geforce 4 or Radeon 8500 is now.

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o

Ok guys, according to the estimate the card should arrive tomorrow, Im excited. I just have one last question, I was talking to someone about uninstalling the old drivers and HE said that I should wait and install the new card and drivers and see if they work first. Is this truly the best way to go? He said that if windows doesnt automatically uninstall the old drivers then I should still be able to delete them anytime after is THIS true?

Uninstall the drivers when you're getting ready to make the swap.
Like: uninstall, shut down, swap cards, boot.

The new card will come with a driver disc ... install using that first, then head to nvidia's site and get the current drivers and you're all set.

If you get issues, look around for some ATi removal tools. I've never had any issues with removing their drivers, but I've heard complaints.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

What are you guys talking about? (not you Crono, your good) AGP Pro? Servers?

Reno previously suggested that you should check to make sure an 8X AGP card will work on your board. His reasoning is that if you're board supports the 4X speed, it may not support the newer 8X speed. I replied with that doesn't normally happen and perhaps the different slot type that is not compatible is the AGP Pro slot.
Some others, very recently, just read that and decided to comment without quoting anyone so it seemed as if it was the main thread of conversation currently.

Did that clear everything up?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Im not sure what AGP it is. But it says it supports 4X and 8X AGP so dont I have nothing to worry about?

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

We're talking about the motherboard, not the video card, right?

You have nothing to worry about in any case. Everything is pretty standardized now.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.