Originally posted by theonejrs:

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icemen,

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thanks Russ, I'm a novice at this, first time i'm going to try & do it myself, Do you know a similar card I can buy for this pc? also will i have to remove the old card? & place the new one in it's place?
The other thing where will i find the drivers? & will the new card come with a disc with the drivers on it? or will i have to download this from somewhere else?

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If you'll look at page 1-4 in the motherboard link I sent you and see if it's layout is the same as yours. If the slot nearest the CPU is slightly longer than the 3 PCI slots and has that little lock tab on it, like in the drawing then get a PCIe 16x card instead of the PCI. You'll have a much better card for about the same money as a decent PCI. For what you have here's a card that will an excellent job for you.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150265
It has 256MB of DDR3 with a 128 bit interface and is much better than your old card. It has better, faster memory and twice the memory interface of your old one. It also has DVI output, which means you can hook it up to a digital LCD monitor if you have one or plan to get one.

Your computer is an interesting one for sure. Medion was known for a lot of funny business and generally cheap crappy computers. Yours has a decent MSI motherboard, and lots of extra goodies like the sata ports, wireless lan and Firewire ports. One reviewer commented that it was a real jewel in a big pile of coal! LOL!!

The Driver disk is included so it's just a matter of removing the old drivers through the Add/Remove Programs in the control panel, which you access from the start menu. Just go there and look on the list that appears and see if the nVidia drivers are on it. If they are, just click on remove them and then install the new ones. Very simple and nVidia drivers are usually less problematic than the older Ati's were. Should be a simple job!

shaffaaf,

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good point russ, but i am sure ANY decent intel mobo can do 1:1, all the asus ones i haev had (3) can do 1:1, who knew the GBs couldnt LOL.

and that the one good thing about nvidia chpsets, they have unlinked FBS:CPU dividers.

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Don't be starting any more motherboard wars, please! We can do very nicely without your smart-ass comment "any decent Intel can do 1:1", which is pure BS! First off, it's a ratio! You can't use the computer and tell what the ratio is by it's performance, as the difference is so very slight! Second, Intel chipsets don't offer that feature, yet 80.2% of all the motherboards sold for Intels have Intel chipsets, and have been the more successful chipsets by a wide margin. This includes an awful lot of very "Decent" motherboards! The nVidia chipsets account for only 11.5% of all the chipsets sold! Both methods have their pros and cons and some of the nVidia chipset's problems are directly related to the link/unlink feature of the memory, particularly the 650i with all it's "black holes"!

Best Regards,
Russ

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say i want to go with 4gigs of mem(yea i know xp will only see 3-3 1/2 gigs)
can i just buy 2 more sticks of the same mem i have now and get the 4 gigs that way or do i need to buy a 4 gig kit in order for it to be dual channel?
i can get 2 more gigs of the same stuff i have now for $19 after rebate. compared to $129 for a 4 gig kit.

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Originally posted by cincyrob:

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say i want to go with 4gigs of mem(yea i know xp will only see 3-3 1/2 gigs)
can i just buy 2 more sticks of the same mem i have now and get the 4 gigs that way or do i need to buy a 4 gig kit in order for it to be dual channel?
i can get 2 more gigs of the same stuff i have now for $19 after rebate. compared to $129 for a 4 gig kit.

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any thoughts on this? sorry to ask twice.

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My PC is the same as the 1-4 motherboard link you sent me, so i'll be better off getting a pcie x16 card but the graphics card you have recommended is out of stock on the link you sent? i've tried to look for one flebay but with no joy. do you know where i can get one from or know of another replacement? I did notice on my old card it has a pin connector at the top of the card & this card has like a slip on clip?
Also i'm thinking of upgrading my memory as it only has 512mb at present, is it just a case of taking the old one out & installing the new memory?
all your help is apprieciated

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Russ you forgot the link. ;)

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theonejrs, can you boot from both the floppy drive & rom drive ok? have you replaced the data cable to the hd?

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I have a problem with a computer I'm repairing and maybe someone might have a answer for me. It's a HP Pavillion 794n, P4 3.06GHz Socket 478. The chipset is an 845G-B/ICH4. The computer will post, and all the drives show in the setup, but it won't boot from anything but the floppy drive. Even if you use a boot disk and enable CD support, it lists all drives but the A and the C as invalid

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russ you have been here a great deal longer than i, yet even i know the odd layout of AD haha

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Some motherboard will search for standard boot up drives such as the floppy and if that doesn't happen then it continues to try and load windows. The fix is quite simple. Go into your bios and disable the floppy drive and the hard drive and then place your CD as first boot in boot order and I guarantee that it will boot into CD. Even though the Hard disk is disabled windows can still write to it.

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Originally posted by rick5446:

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I'm looking at Seagate HDD and they all have Cache: 32MB,
Average Latency 4.16ms,Perpendicular recording technology Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive:
or
Average Seek Time: 16ms,Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...TCH&srchInDesc=
so can you inform me as to which is the better, & more reliable Drive
The only difference that I can see is the Barracuda shows Proven second-generation perpendicular recording technology with a 5yr Warranty

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