Failed AGP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Colin Bearfield
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Colin Bearfield

Four years ago I bought one of the first Athlon machines, a 550MHz.
The motherboard is a MS-6167 ATX IR1 and the video card is marked as
Matrox MG1 G4+MAA32G. The machine is occasionally used as a second
machine in my home network.

The video card has now failed (switched monitors and no change) and I
am told that it is likely to be an AGP1 card which are no longer
available. Will this motherboard take a later model AGP card?

Best wishes

Colin
 
Four years ago I bought one of the first Athlon machines, a 550MHz.
The motherboard is a MS-6167 ATX IR1 and the video card is marked as
Matrox MG1 G4+MAA32G. The machine is occasionally used as a second
machine in my home network.

The video card has now failed (switched monitors and no change) and I
am told that it is likely to be an AGP1 card which are no longer
available. Will this motherboard take a later model AGP card?

Best wishes

Colin
Click to expand...

Just to be certain of the situation, you're sure the video card is
dead, it's not that you just don't get "anything" when you try to turn
the machine on? I ask because it's more common for the motherboard to
fail, with the result being no POST, no video output when it's turned
on.

AGP1 cards are still relatively easy to find... perhaps if you're an
OEM you'd be out of luck finding that high volume, but a single, if
you're not REALLY picky about the make and model, is easy enough to
find. Your motherboard does indeed have an AGP1 slot, but that
doesn't limit it to AGP1 cards. AGP2 cards are backwards compatible,
so long as the motherboard is physically capable of suppling enough
current, and likewise the system power supply can manage a higher
load, IF the new card is such. I know of no particular issues with
that motherboard, that would prevent it from using a modern mid-range
video card, but I don't have that board nor most of the cards to test,
so I can't be certain of specific cards, just that in general, it'll
work to use a newer AGP2 card in an old AGP1 board, but you cannot
reuse an old AGP1 video card in a newer AGP2-only motherboard, so at
this point it might be wise to buy an AGP2 capable card, something at
least one model/generation newer than what you have.

I'm not good at decoding Matrox's codes, but I believe you have a
G400, 32MB. _IF_ your video card is dead it's not hard to find
another G400, though it's successor the G450 was actually lower priced
due to market changes, though today I doubt that price difference is
as significant as spot-pricing.... just depends on who has 'em still.

You'd probably be able to find a G400 or G450 on eBay, but there are
still a few elsewhere, for example:
http://www.computerasset.com/desc.asp?id=2069 , but today it might be
a better choice to get something like an ATI Radeon 9200.


Dave
 
Just to be certain of the situation, you're sure the video card is
dead, it's not that you just don't get "anything" when you try to turn
the machine on? I ask because it's more common for the motherboard to
fail, with the result being no POST, no video output when it's turned
on.
Click to expand...

I have considerd this but I'm not certain. There are no unusual beeps.
The BIOS seems to be doing regular checks of the peripherals, but
then nothing on screen and the monitor LED remains orange. There was
no signal reaching my other monitor when I switched them.
AGP1 cards are still relatively easy to find... perhaps if you're an
OEM you'd be out of luck finding that high volume, but a single, if
you're not REALLY picky about the make and model, is easy enough to
find. Your motherboard does indeed have an AGP1 slot, but that
doesn't limit it to AGP1 cards. AGP2 cards are backwards compatible,
so long as the motherboard is physically capable of suppling enough
current, and likewise the system power supply can manage a higher
load, IF the new card is such. I know of no particular issues with
that motherboard, that would prevent it from using a modern mid-range
video card, but I don't have that board nor most of the cards to test,
so I can't be certain of specific cards, just that in general, it'll
work to use a newer AGP2 card in an old AGP1 board, but you cannot
reuse an old AGP1 video card in a newer AGP2-only motherboard, so at
this point it might be wise to buy an AGP2 capable card, something at
least one model/generation newer than what you have.

I'm not good at decoding Matrox's codes, but I believe you have a
G400, 32MB. _IF_ your video card is dead it's not hard to find
another G400, though it's successor the G450 was actually lower priced
due to market changes, though today I doubt that price difference is
as significant as spot-pricing.... just depends on who has 'em still.

You'd probably be able to find a G400 or G450 on eBay, but there are
still a few elsewhere, for example:
http://www.computerasset.com/desc.asp?id=2069 , but today it might be
a better choice to get something like an ATI Radeon 9200.


Dave
Click to expand...

Well, what a nice Christmas present to have such an answer. Many
thanks.

Colin
 
Right, Dave, here's the latest.

A friend has popped round with an old PCI video card. I progressively
took most things out of circuit until I had only one of the 2 simms in
circuit and the PCI video card. That's when things worked. I switched
simms and it still worked, so the seating probably was faulty. Anyway
they both are happy now. having replaced all the expansion cards the
only time things didn't work was when I was using the AGP card.

So, now I have to check if the motherboard will take an AGP2 and keep
my fingers crossed.

Merry Christmas.

Colin
 
Right, Dave, here's the latest.

A friend has popped round with an old PCI video card. I progressively
took most things out of circuit until I had only one of the 2 simms in
circuit and the PCI video card. That's when things worked. I switched
simms and it still worked, so the seating probably was faulty. Anyway
they both are happy now. having replaced all the expansion cards the
only time things didn't work was when I was using the AGP card.

So, now I have to check if the motherboard will take an AGP2 and keep
my fingers crossed.

Merry Christmas.

Colin
Click to expand...

Colin,
Dave was good enough to walk me through this just last week. I have an
older machine with an AGP1 slot. It currently has an AGP2 Matrox G450
card residing in the slot just fine. As Dave explained, you can
visually distinguish AGP1 from AGP2 by looking at the narrow slots
dividing the row of contacts. The AGP1 has 1 slot, thus dividing the
row of contacts into two sections. The AGP2 card has 2 slots thus
dividing the row of contacts into three sections.
HTH
DFB
 
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