Inexpensive Nvidia graphics card

[Capmaster]

Not a big deal card, but I really appreciate how far the graphics card technology has come in the last 10 years or so. Wow!!!

A couple months ago the card I had bought back in Dec. 2006 died a horrible death. The heatsink fan started failing and the card overheated. It would intermittently lock up the PC and cause BSODs

It was the original card I got when I piece-parted together my current desktop, an ATI/Diamond X300SE 128MB PCI-E 16x, DVI, S-Video & VGA out. I needed the VGA because I'm still using an older 4:3 analog Sony LCD monitor I bought in 2004. I think I paid $30 for it from Newegg.



To keep me up and running I rummaged through my old PC hardware treasure trove and found a serviceable 13-year-old STB Lightspeed 128 PCI card we had had in one of our past machines in the house. It had a whopping 2.25MB on-board video memory



I popped it in and it worked fine, but it is severely limited in resolution/bit depth. The highest it will go at 24-bit is 1024x768. Also, the screen isn't as sharp and crisp as the previous card. Luckily Win 7 has a text sharpness adjustment which cleaned it up quite a bit. Another nice little perk of Win 7

Ten years ago that was plenty of card, but over the years I have grown accustomed to 1280x1024 on this monitor. It seems to be the perfect balance of desktop and working space with minimum "squint factor". Dropping down to 1024 was difficult. I had to prune out some older, less-used icons on the desktop to make room for the others, relegating them to only the start menu. I planned to do something about it after the holidays. I don't game mush anymore so I don't need a "shock and awe" $300 kick-ass card. Just something that will give me the working space I need, and be at least passable should I feel the occasional urge to dust off Doom 3

Ebay had just issued us an "Ebay Bucks" certificate. That's a little rebate program they have where you get back little bit of money from purchases. But they only give you a month, so today I ordered a new card. Yesterday I spotted an incredibly cheap card that fits the bill. I had been poking around the usual sites - Geeks, Price Watch, Newegg, etc. and it seemed that if I wanted to pay less than 30 bucks for a new card I would have to go with a cheapo brand that has gotten lousy reviews, like this 3DFuzion card. From the reviews it sounds like it's a hardware failure waiting to happen

The one I found was only $7 with $8 shipping, which is a great price itself, but with our Ebay Bucks discount it was just too good to pass up Here's the Ebay ad and here's the Nvidia product page.



I'm posting this in Tightwads because of the extremely low price, in case someone else is looking to replace their video card

[gastorgrab]

You could always do what i did.


Find one of the online shops that sells thermal epoxy (heat sink epoxy) and glue a common northbridge cooler to the chipset. Make sure that the NB cooler uses a 'replaceable'-type fan!


The heatsink may require minor grinding to make it clear other components on the circuit board.
.

[Capmaster]

I'll probably do something similar. I have a nice heatsink in the garage that should fit with a little modification. Ideally I would like a passive heatsink that is adequate so I'm not relying on some cheesy sleeve bearing plastic fan. If that card's fan hadn't failed I'm sure the card would still be working.

[Capmaster]

I got a note from the seller saying they no longer have the card in stock. He felt bad and offered me a choice of two better cards as a replacement: ATI X600 128MB or PNY Verto 7300GS 256MB (Nvidia chipset). The ATI is out because it has no VGA connector, but the PNY is actually an upgraded model of the one I initially bought. Ebay sellers are selling the card for almost 4X what I paid him for the 7300LE, and it has 4X the memory. The card retails for as much as $79

[Capmaster]

I got the 7300GS card yesterday and it was DOA They had shipped it in an envelope with just the anti-static bag and a cursory wrapping of that thin foam paper stuff. Certainly not safe for shipping a multilayer PC board

I installed it and powered the desktop on and I got some text - with a bunch of vertical colored stripes, even during POST. It was hosed. I tried in vain to clean the contacts and even reinstalled the old card to change a few BIOS settings ...just in case. NFG.

I sent the seller a message:

I knew it was too good to be true.

The PNY Nvidia 7300GS you sent as a replacement for the 7 was DOA. Not only was it a low-profile card (not equal to the card at http://cgi.ebay.com/PNY-Verto-7300GS-25 ... 4a9d8f7dd3 which is clearly a full-height) as you stated, but it was wrapped so poorly for shipment I have no doubt that it was damaged in transit. An envelope???????

Kohavis

This morning he had replied:

I have one of these, sealed and new: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814133172



I’ll send it out (in a box) as soon as possible if you would like.


Sorry for all the trouble. I’m not sure where the hang up was on our end, but it will be addressed.



Please let me know ASAP so it can be sent.

Regards,

The first replacement card was one cut above the one I originally tried to buy. This second replacement is two steps above in the Nvidia 7 Series line It won't mean anything if it is another DOA, however, so I'll reserve my jubilation until it's installed and working.

Here are the specs:

Graphic Processor NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
GPU Clock Speed 350 MHz
RAMDAC Speed 400 MHz
Card Interface PCI Express
Compatibility PC
Installed Memory 256 MB
Memory Tech DDR2 SDRAM
Memory Data Width 128-bit
Installed Memory / Technology 256 MB (DDR2 SDRAM)
Memory Bandwidth 10.66 GB/sec
Form Factor Plug-in card
Max. Screen Resolution 2048 x 1536
Refresh Rate at Max Res 85 Hz @ 2048 x 1536
Pipeline Engines 8 Pipeline Engines
Fill Rate 2.8 Bilion pixels/sec
Special Features SLI Multi GPU Ready ? HDTV Encoder ? HDTV TV-out Support
Display Interface VGA - 15 pin D-Sub x 1 ? DVI x 1
Output Interface S-Video ? Composite (RCA) ? HDTV Out
Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 ? Microsoft Windows XP ? Microsoft Windows Vista
Warranty 1 Year
Included Accessories S-Video Cable ? DVI-I to VGA Adapter ? Drivers CD ? HDTV-out Breakout Pod

[gastorgrab]

I'll believe it when i see it.
.

[Capmaster]

I'll believe it when i see it.
.

Me too

Still ...if he does send me the card, and it works, it'll be worth the hassle. The card will have cost me $7

[Doramius]

not a bad price. You said you passed up on the ATI card because it was DVI only? There are DVI>VGA adapters. I have about 6 of them floating around here. However, You might not have gotten the deal you're getting now.

[Capmaster]

I know there are adapters. There are other reasons why I didn't go with the ATI chipset card, as the card that died in November was an ATI:

1. The ATI Catalyst setup installs all manner of crap into several layers of Windows, much like Symantec stuff. It doesn't give you the option of just installing the device drivers without all the "gee whiz" graphics/video fluff crap. It even puts items into the explorer right-click menu, like anyone would be using explorer and suddenly get the urge to change their graphics properties. ATI Catalyst install would take about 30 minutes to complete in XP. It would take 5 minutes for the setup welcome screen to show, and each mouse-click after that, you'd wait ...and wait ...and wait ...until finally the next screen would show. And the software had caused numerous freeze-ups. I had to manually edit the registry to get much of the harmful crap out, like all the unneeded startup updates and stuff. And there were never options to turn those off in the setup. It's true that Win 7 has the drivers already and I wouldn't even need the ATI setup disk, but it's the principle of the thing. ATI software sucks.

2. The build quality of the ATI card was terrible. If you recall, a while back I had a problem with the flickering of my monitor. It turned out to be from the cheapest possible VGA connector they put on the backplane bracket. It was a cheapo ribbon cable connector that only hinted at making contact with the wires The S-Video input was dead from day 1. Luckily I never really needed it. And when I removed the heatsink from the main chip, it was dry. No thermal compound They probably figured they could make 20 cents per card for the stockholders by leaving that out

I had owned an nice Nvidia card in my work HP Xeon workstation. It was a Quadro-something. Never had any issues, and the installation software did just that - installed the hardware. It didn't try to become a second operating system.

[Capmaster]

I'll believe it when i see it.
.

Yep. It was too good to be true

The seller did everything possible to get the second card to me, but fate stood in the way ......and the US Postal Service.

I had sent him an email the other day asking what was going on with the shipment since I hadn't received it yet. He said he had sent it out Jan. 15, and gave me a Priority Mail tracking number. I looked it up and discovered it was flagged as "undeliverable", that it couldn't be returned to the sender, and it was sent to the Mail Recovery Center. I looked those up and found out that there's one in St. Paul and another in Atlanta. it's what they used to call the "dead letter office". And once something is sent there, the USPS either auctions it off or sells it on Ebay ...which is where I had bought it

The attempted delivery date was Jan. 19, the day after a holiday. We have cluster boxes with two parcel lockers. With a package the carrier puts the box in the locker, locks it, and puts that locker key in the regular mailbox. I suspect that being very busy, he/she had more than one parcel to deliver there, filled up the two lockers and instead of trying to deliver the package to our house (4 houses down the street), they just marked it as undeliverable. They've done stuff like that before. Complete incompetents, the lot of them

I called the local substation at 9am today hoping to intercept it before it falls into the black hole of Calcutta, and 9am was the advertised opening time for "full" service at the counter. The Saturday houes are 9 - 3. Presumably all employees are present and ready for work at start time, right? Wrong. The guy did a cursory check, didn't see the package, and informed me I needed yo call back in 90 minutes when the clerks get there, since they know the area better than he does. EXCUSE ME?!? The clerks aren't there at opening time? Instead they get to start the working day at 10:30am and go home at 3? Unbe-fucking-lievable!

I sent an email to the sender, explaining what was going on. I told him that he didn't need to do anything at his end. I also told him that I know he did everything humanly possible to get a good graphics card to me, and for him to just keep the money. I didn't want a refund. That would have been unfair to him. It wasn't his fault. I will be giving him an excellent feedback.

So in a little more than an hour I'll probably be told that the package is on its way to Minnesota, and that will be the end of it. One of life's painful, but effective little lessons: DON'T USE THE USPS FOR PACKAGE DELIVERY!!!

[Capmaster]

Update: I talked to someone at the substation who had a little knowledge - a daunting task in and of itself He said the package had arrived at the main post office with a damaged label and they couldn't read the delivery address or the return address, so they just sent it on to the recovery center. He did give me a couple phone numbers at their facility in Greensboro, NC which is apparently their new recovery center. I tried both numbers and both were away from their desks, or not even in today I left a message, but I'm not holding out much hope that I'll ever see the package.

So because of the post office's rough handling of my package, the label was damaged and they couldn't deliver it. So I'm out of luck due to their incompetence. Yeah, that's about what I'd expect from that overpaid collective of slack-jawed mouth-breathers

[gastorgrab]

And who gets first dibs when the bidding starts, the mailman who messed up the label?


Remember the scene from 'Big Daddy' when they threw the cans on the floor of the grocery store to get a discount.
.

[Capmaster]

Yep. Could be something like that.

I couldn't believe it, but shortly after I started at the labs they had a fenced area where they had skids and skids of equipment that didn't work. It had been sent to reclamation by employees.

They sold some of it for almost scrap prices to the local schools and local businesses because there was so much of it that it didn't make sense to repair it all. There were centrifuges, oscilloscopes, signal generators, gas chromatographs, electron microscopes ...you name it, they had it. Expensive stuff when it was new. Much of it worked, but some didn't, and the non-functioning gear was sold for laughably low prices. Like a reasonably current Tektronix scope for $5

Later they discontinued it because there were several instances of employees who would remove a vital part of a piece of equipment they wanted, rendering it non-functional. They would take the part home. Then that Saturday they would buy that piece of gear for like five bucks, get it home, replace the critical IC or other small part, and they'd have a $5,000 piece of equipment.

They fired the employees, made them ineligible for another DOE security clearance for life, and showed them the door. It probably was an unwise choice for them, but there were surprisingly enough people doing that that they forever quit allowing employees to participate.

Could be the mail people are doing the same thing, especially if the packages are shipped in the OEM box showing what's inside

[Capmaster]

UPDATE: I just got this email from the seller:

I already contacted them and they said we’ll likely receive a refund for the worth of the card. I feel bad for your series of inconveniences and want you to get a card. I have one more option for this:

Palit HD2600XT PCI-E 512MB DDR3 w/ TV-out and 2 x DVI ports.



Please let me know if this will suit your needs and I’ll get one sent as soon as we hear back from USPS.


Regards,

I checked the card. It's an older, discontinued card, but it's yet another step up from the one I originally ordered, and WAY better than the card I had in the machine for 3 years:

http://www.elitebastards.com/index.php? ... mitstart=4

Specifications

* Bus interface: PCI Express
* Memory Support: 512MB GDDR3
* Memory Interface: 128bit
* RAMDACs: 400 MHz
* Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Shader Model 4.0 support
* ATI HyperMemory Technology*
* Dual-link DVI outputs support two 2560x1600 resolution displays
* Superscalar unified shader architecture
* 120 stream processing units.
* Comprehensive DirectX® 10 support
* High-speed 128-bit HDR(High Dynamic Range) rendering
* Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing
* ATI Avivo™ HD video and display technology
* Dynamic geometry acceleration
* Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray™ and HD DVD™
* Native HDMI on board
* Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

The card has 2 DVI outputs, and my monitor is analog. But it comes with (2) DVI-to-VGA adapters along with S-Video-to-component breakout cable and an S-video cable

But ...if the post office can't get a working card to me, it doesn't really matter WHAT the specs are

[Capmaster]

I got the card yesterday. You should have seen how well it was packed The card was inside a bubble-wrap sleeve. That was surrounded by air-filled plastic cushion material, and that was inside an egg-carton-foam-rubber-lined cardboard box You could have dropped that box off the Sears Tower and the card would have survived It looks just like the pic in the above post.

The one inconvenience is that he sent just the card with nothing else from the retail package, and since my monitor takes only VGA, I'll have to run to the store this morning and pick up a DVI male-to-VGA female connector. But at least I have a card after so many weeks of waiting

[gastorgrab]

You're using a SVGA connection?

[Capmaster]

You're using a SVGA connection?

Yes. That's the only connection my monitor has.

It's like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SDM-HS73-Fla ... B000092ZLF

[Doramius]

Cap got the budget LCD. But you gotta admire the system.

[Capmaster]

Cap got the budget LCD. But you gotta admire the system.

It wasn't a "budget" monitor in 2004 when I bought it bundled with the Sony Vaio system. The monitor was selling for $500 separately at the time. How many here have spent $500 on a monitor lately?

I know that today it is a pretty rudimentary monitor, but it serves me well. It's a good monitor. I don't use it for anything that would show its weaknesses, and Windows 7 has that Clear Text calibration that makes the text really sharp and clear

[Doramius]

I got paid $800 to have a 23" LCD.

Malef wasn't too happy at first about it, but now she calls it a wise decision.

[Capmaster]

Sure I would LIKE a big widescreen monitor like this one, but I couldn't justify it as long as there's life left in the Sony. Of course, if the Sony lasts just a little TOO long and it starts to look like I'll be buried with it, it could always have an unfortunate "accident"

[Doramius]

What's wrong with running dual monitors?

[Capmaster]

What's wrong with running dual monitors?

It requires dual $$$

[Doramius]

You've already got half your issue resolved.

[Capmaster]

You've already got half your issue resolved.

The existing half was the easy part. The second half is the one that causes the problems

[Doramius]

You'll just have to wait longer until you get a new compressor for Dolly.

[träskmannen]

You'll just have to wait longer until you get a new compressor for Dolly.

You need to re-think your priorities!

[Capmaster]

You need to re-think your priorities!

It's obvious that you haven't ...ahem ...."used" Dolly since the recent helium upgrade

[träskmannen]

An elevating experience?

[Capmaster]

An elevating experience?

It's an experience above all others