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It's a 110L, 1.86GHz and 1 Gig of RAM. Running XP Pro with SP2.

I thought it was a bit odd too, but maybe as you say in your post, it's only displaying what it's own TFT screen is capable of rather than what it's graphics capability is. I was hoping that if I plugged a decent monitor into it, I'd get more options!

What graphics card do you have? (Right click My Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Display adapters) There's a 99% chance that whatever you have will handle it just fine, but if it's really really old and crap then it many not.

To find out all the modes your graphics card supports, right click the Desktop -> Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Adaptor -> List All Modes. Be sure to use Cancel to get out of that screen as that screen is used to change mode regardless of what your monitor says it can do.


However, that monitor doesn't have a DVI input, just the older analogue VGA input. For this reason alone I would avoid it.

There's some customer reviews of it on US shopping site newegg.com pretty much all of them say it's crap

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116099

It's an "S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR (Microsoft Corporation)" - whatever that is!

The other list thing suggests that 1280 x 1024 True colour (32 bit) at 60Hz is the best it can manage (although 1280 x 1024 is also the best it can manage even in 256 colours)!

Ta for the reviews - looks like you've saved me from "saving" some money! Will look elsewhere.

Would be interested to know if you think I'll need a graphics card though. I've definitely got spare PCI slots.


Interestingly, doing the same thing on the "work" laptop suggests that it has a Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express chipset family and that 1024 x 768, True colour (32 bit) at 60Hz is the best it can do too!

Oh god that thing really is old, is it an onboard card?

Does your system have an AGP slot? it's usually the brown one.

I had a feeling you were goin to say that!

Don't know about the AGP slot - will take the side off in the next few days and have a look. What about the laptop though? It's less than a year old and appears to have the same graphics capability. Is that just 'cause my work bought me a really skanky laptop?!

Quite probably. A lot of the lower end laptops use cheaper integrated graphics chipsets from the likes of S3.

For non-gamers they're fine (unless it's a chipset that has really badly written drivers), it just looks like the one in your desktop won't do the resolution you were after and thus you'll need to upgrade.

Personally I'd get the monitor first just incase it somehow makes the resolution available. A suitable non-gaming graphics card is going to set you back £20-£50 for a new one, less if you get one off eBay, hell I've got an old AGP GeForce 7900GS for sale which will do you reasonably well for a lot of games (It'll run Half Life 2, will just about run Crysis maybe) that you can have for 30 quid plus postage. It was a top end card back in it's day. Has two DVI-I ports (which can be adapted into VGA if you want to drive your CRT off it as well). You'll need a couple of spare 4-pin molex connectors on your PSU to make full use if it's 3D capabilities though.

Edit: I sometimes drive through Cumbria if you're in no hurry.

Is the fact "you are in no hurry" just for CSCP's benefit?

If you're in no hurry, call into Staveley any time your passing!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

It refers more to the fact that I don't currently have any trips planned that take me through Cumbria until about January.

But if in no hurry (and assuming it isn't some huge detour from the M6) I'd be happy to pop in with the card and install it, save on postage too. It's just taking up space in the house and we don't really have any AGP machines left that it'd be useful in.

Oh and thanks for the offer, but would be a bad idea if I was just passing. I don't have any customers in that area, just further into the north east.

It's theonly smiley with a drink in it's hand - we should have a coffee drinking smiley like the one on PistonHeads!
I'm afraid Mole and I are both several slow moving tourists from the M6!
However we have some really nice scenery, a bakery in the Mill Yard, Wilfs cafe (renowned).. well see for yourself http://www.broc.co.uk and click the current businesses link.

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Ta for all that! Jolly kind! I guess the sensible thing would be to do as you suggest and get the monitor first. If I need a card (and I think I probably will!) I'd be happy to take yours off you at the price stated! As Ernest says, I'm not exactly "just off the M6" (closer to Whitehaven in fact)! so I guess it will be a job for Postman Pat!

Will have a look for more monitors and post again soon though!

I just looked up Whitehaven, if thats where you are then yeah that's a bigger detour than I'm prepared to make.
Windermere would've been ok, Keswick at a push.

Do check for AGP slots and two spare power connectors (the same type as drive a CD-ROM in a typical PC) ideally on two separate wires, before you buy my card though. I don't want to sell you something that isn't going to work (don't worry, it doesn't draw loads of power unless you actually make use of the 3D features (or use it's hardware decoding of H.264 hi-def video), it's just the drivers complain if they aren't connected). Don't suppose you know what wattage your power supply is do you?

It's this card only difference is the pointless metal cover has been removed and subsequently lost (I still have the box though). Do be aware that it takes up two slots!

It's ironic really. I'm letting the card go cheap because it's worthless to me, but it's going to be massive overkill for what you need.

OK all,

How about these then??? Never heard of the make but it seems to have a good response time!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Aoc-919Va2-LCD-19 ... 240%3A1318


or this, which can't seem to make up it's mind what response time it has and has no DVI input:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HP-L1906-19-TFT-F ... 240%3A1318


or this (again no DVI - at least, I don't think so)!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yuraku-19-LCD-5ms ... 240%3A1318


or would a used one be a sensible proposition? Do they tend to loose pixels over a period of time?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lenovo-L197w-19-W ... 240%3A1318

or a Samsung...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LS19MYAKSB-NEW-SA ... 240%3A1318

All thoughts much appreciated!

Be very careful with response time, that's purely the time it takes the pixels to change colour, it's not the same as input lag. That said a high response time does get annoying as it means the display gradually fades from one to the other, no moden panel is that slow though.


As for the panels, based on the information provided it's hard to say, none of the adverts state the actual panel type, two of them don't have DVI, the last one doesn't say whether it has DVI or not, and all of them use resolutions that I personally hate (1280x1024 because of it's 5:3 aspect ratio and 1400x900 because it's just so tiny once you take into account the Windows taskbar and the Office toolbars, especially if you're using Office 2007)

As for buying used, that's a tough call and I'll have to leave it to someone else as it's something I've never even considered when buying a monitor, because I'm a fussy bugger and like having the option to send it back. When I bought my first (CRT) monitor that was from my own money, I must have sent back about 25 of the things before I got one I was happy with. I got 11 years use out of that thing before it started to fail however.

On the subject of graphics cards, I just found my older GeForce 6800GS, it's still overkill for what you need, and still needs an external power connector, but I'd let this one go for 25 quid. It has one VGA and one DVI, as opposed to two DVIs on the 7800. It also has a much smaller fan, so presumably puts out less heat (and in turn draws less power). Both cards are AGP 8x. I know for a fact that the 6800 will also work with AGP 4x. In theory the 7800 should too but I've not personally tested it.

OK, I took the computer to bits this weekend and found (apart from an insane amount of dust!) that it only has one free PCI slot and one of those "brown ones".



and



The card in the other PCI slot is the ethernet card.

I also found out that the power supply is a Herachi HEC 300ER-PT. It has 5V and 3.3V outputs and claims to have a "total" power output of 300W (presumably all the 5V and 3.3V ones combined). It also, (I have now found!) has a knackered fan in it. This seems to be seized. There are two spare power cables but one is a branch from the other.

Incidentally, I ended up getting a Hanns G 22" widescreen monitor in the end (well, ordering one anyway - hasn't arrived yet)!

http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/A0430990

So I'm "committed" now!

You can rejig the cabling such that you have one free on each wire, not sure it's as important with the 6800 though.

The top slot is AGP. The bottom one looks like an AMR or CNR or put another way, completely useless slot, fortunately it's sharing the same space as that PCI ethernet card so it's not actually wasting a position on the back of the case (which is really annoying on those Micro ATX boards)

As for the PSU, if you're handy with a soldering iron and know what you're doing it's relatively easy to replace the fan, just beware of getting electrocuted by the capacitors as that will hurt quite a bit.

Alternatively replace it with something a bit beefier (and higher quality) like a 400W Enermax or something.

OK. it's finally arrived! I went for the Hanns G 22" one. I've plugged it in just using the VGA cable and wrong resolution and I've have been surprised on two fronts. First of all, it doesn't look as bad as I'd feared (which shows how bad my old CRT one was getting)! Secondly my graphics card seems to have upped its game and is now offering me a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200! The native resolution of this monitor is 1680 x 1050.

New questions are now:

1. Does the lousiness of the picture vary in proportion to how far away from native resolution it's running? (i.e. does 1600 x 1200 look a bit worse and 1024 x 768 look absolutely awful) and
2. All the resolutions the card is offering me are 4:3. Is there a way of making it offer me something with a 16:10 ratio? Everything's looking pretty fat at present!

Lum, if you're still happy to part with that second graphics car, PM me and I'll send you some beer tokens. Can it do 16:10 aspect ratios and will it go on that brown slot on my board (which I think from your earlier post is an AGP slot). Did you say it needed a PCI slot AS WELL or is one AGP enough?

1) It's a little more complicated than that, it's to do with how the image is stretched, for example if you could somehow convince your card to do 840x525 (exactly half) that would look fairly good since it'd basically be lighting up 4 pixels (2x2) for every one pixel your graphics card puts out. When the difference is fairly close, like 1600 -> 1680 there's not much it can do apart from insert 80 extra lines in there and blur it a bit so that it doesn't look so bad.

2) You could see if there are updated drivers available for the card, also if you right click the desktop -> Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Adapter -> List All Modes you might find something useful there. Make sure you stick to 60Hz modes though.

Still happy to sell the card, it's just taking up space here. I'm 99% certain it'll do 1680x1050 if it doesn't I'll refund the cash if you send me the card back. It doesn't need a PCI slot as such, it's just that the heatsink on it is so big it will block access to the next slot along from the AGP slot. It doesn't look like you're using the other slots for anything though, so this shouldn't be an issue for you.

Lum's card will quite happily offer the correct widescreen resolution your monitor needs, although I'd check to see if there is a driver update first for your graphics card.
Also, install the drivers for the monitor so Windows is aware of what it is really capable of.

Regarding the PSU, you're gonna want something slightly more manly if you do have Lum's card.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

It'll be ok so long as he doesn't run any 3D games, or Vista
You can actually run it with the extra power connector unplugged. It'll just pop up a nag screen if you do.