Geforce2 MX seems to be on its Last Legs

Now I haven't officially declared my gf2 MX 100/200 dead, but it isn't working very well at all. About a month or more ago I started to have problems revolving around my ol video card, when playing games like half life the view would blur up randomly, with many thin vertical lines going thru the screen. After about a minute the computer would restart. Eventually this started happening on some start ups. Nowadays any program (I've only tried games i think) needing hardware acceleration causes an insta-meltdown, and whenever the PC is booted up the screen is blurred for 2 restarts until it fixes itself.

I've tried updating and downgrading drivers and stuff, and changing all sorts of settings back and foward, with no improvement in the situation.

The system is:
AMD Athlon 1.2ghz
Geforce 2 mx 100/200
256mb ram
30 gig hard drive
(The power supply was replaced a few months ago)

I just recently had the thought that the new power supply might not agree with other things? Since that was changed about 2 months before problems started happening, and nothing else has been changed for a few years before that.

Anywhoo is there anything I can do to fix it? On another forum someone told me to check if the cooling is secured to the chip, which I'm yet to do.

 

I'd check the cooling, the card is old enough that the fan could be on it's way out, the fans were never very good on the average geforce 2's anyway. Check the temps in the nVidia control panel assuming you have one. If they read low you've got me stumped but if it's up in the 60's or so anyway under load things might get dicey, or maybe the core shutdown settings are configured low? Either way a minor upgrade would only cost $50 for a hugely better card dude.

 

Thanks for that, i'll open up the box sometime to check it out. On the nview menu I can't find any way to check the temperature. I get the feeling that temperature wouldnt be doing it, since the problem ALWAYS occurs twice on start up, unless the thing could possibly too cold to work properly, and needs a warm up.

As you'd (hopefully) know I'm looking for a major upgrade so I don't think I'll bother with a new video card unless people refuse to assist me with funding the big operation. I can afford $50 myself easily, but not $1000.

 

Yeah if it's on start-up temps probably wouldn't be the prob, though I can't be sure. Sometimes old cards just meet the end of their lifespan, just like processors.
So if you can't get people to help you with the full $1000 upgrade then you'll just buy a video card, but if they can help you you won't buy a new video card?

 

I'm 99% sure I'll eventually do both, it really just depends on the order in which things are done. If we get the whole new system now, then there won't be any urgency to getting a new vid card in the old system.

If I can't get financial aid with the new system, I'll buy a new video card asap for the older system so it can run smoothly for the time being while I save up money. Any suggestions on what card to get to upgrade? I know that I could buy anything and it'd be better, but what would work best with my system. The motherboard seems to be a DFI AM75-TC VIA with AGP 4x.

 

buy the cheapest dx9 card you can get apart from the Radeon 9200. Maybe GF FX 5200?

 

How much do you want to spend? I suggest going with something like the 9600 Pro, you'll notice a major speed bost but it won't cost you too much.

 

a 9600pro should be good or possibly a 9600XT should last a good time, my dad has a 9600AIW and it handles farcry and HL2 very good on medium settings (high being max AA and AF) it can take texturing good, and AA on Medium, AF trilinear on 2

 

I don't wanna overspend, as in buying a card that won't be its worth if it gets held back by the rest of my current system (which I have no plans to upgrade) and anything, even a $25 mx400 would beat the crap out of my gf2mx wouldnt it?

Do I need to be careful what kind of AGP card i get, with 4x and 8x, since I have 4x?

Some cheap choices I have are things such as the mx400, 9250SE, 9250, fx5200.

Probably get myself a fx5200 or 9250.

 

yeah out of those choices i'd do the same, all agp cards should run on 4x as well as 8x

whats your budget?

 

Radeon 9250 is a good choice, that shouldn't be limeted by your other components but will give you a good boost. I wouldn't bother with the MX400 or anything MX, the for instance the GeForce 4MX was just a relitively beefed up GeForce 2, so the speed boost isn't any thing to hoot about. The MX400 is better but can't beat a 9250 by any means. Get that one unless you find something better for the same price.

 

I can sell a GeForce2 MX400 with DVI out for $20 (maybe less, depends) but thats only if you jsut want to get back to working. If you want an upgrade go for the 9250. Plus the shipping form the US to Austrailia probably wouldn't be too hot.

 

My budget is probably about $50-$70 or so, and the two cards above that I mentioned (depending on where I shop) fit into that budget.

Most importantly I just want to get things back to working, but I suppose its not worth getting an MX, i know that they arent that great since thats what I have now. I figure while I'm at it I should get some improvement in performance for the money I spend. The most intensive game I'd wanna play on this system would probably be call of duty, and then other older fps's like battlefield 1942 and half life 1, so I don't need anything too spectacular.

Hehehe max, thanks for the offer but it'd probably cost another $20 in shipping lol.

 

You best buy for that price range is a Radeon 9600 Pro.

 

I agree

 

I'm talking in Australian dollars. It'd be US$35-55 budget. Looking thru all the computer trader here the 9600 Pro's I can see are around the $150 mark (well above the exchange rate) so its a bit above what I wanna spend. My main focus with my cash is to go on the new machine.

Thanks for the help all.

 

That's a good card, might even be overkill for his other specs though, especially with 256Mbs or vram.

 

This is about as good as you can do in that price range: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102475

 

That doesn't sound too bad, there doesn't seem to be many 9600SE's listed but I'm sure there is some in different shops that havent been listed in the ads. I'll keep an eye out.

 

Alright then, keep us posted