Suggestions

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:05 am

Got XP installed, but the on-board video SUCKS! It has:
ATI* RAGE* XL SVGA PCI video controller with 8 MB of video memory

The slots are:
Two (2) PCI-X 64/100 slots (open)
One (1) PCI 32/33 slot (used Sound Blaster Live)
One (1) PCI Express x4 slot (open)
One (1) PCI Express x8 slot (open)
One (1) Riser slot PCI-X 64/133 (used Adaptec 39320 SCSI contoller)

I would like to use one of the PCI Express slots, but nut sure what video card would work.

I used HD Tach and I'm getting almost 200mb/sec for performace on this raid 0 with the 2 Cheetah 320 drives. Thought it would be a little more.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:18 pm

There are 1x PCIE cards out there. Or if you have a 16x card that's older & you don't care much for, you can actually clip the pins like this:
http://www.invisiblerobot.com/pcie_x1/

However, why do you care about how good the video is? That chipset will do the trick for pretty high resolutions. No need for 3d on a server.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:53 pm

normalicy wrote:However, why do you care about how good the video is? That chipset will do the trick for pretty high resolutions. No need for 3d on a server.

because surfing the web and watching the pages being drawn on the screen is really slow. I'm sure its the video card. Also, I won't be using this as a server (not yet).

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:02 pm

On that PCI-Express X8 slot, is the back end of the slot open? I.E., look like you could physically put a X16 card into the slot with the extra pins hanging out? If so, you can put an X16 card in the slot, and it will work fine. It will just run at the X8 speed.

If not, you can modify either a card or the slot by taking a dremel to it and either carefully cutting out the back of the slot, or cutting off the extra pins of a card.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 3:15 pm

Nope, slot is closed at the end.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:35 pm

Then get out the dremel.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:01 pm

I received the Fan Mate, and I noticed on the cpu fan that it has 4 wires not 3. Anyone know what all the wires do? Obviously one is + and the other is -.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:03 pm

one is tach and i think the new fourth pin is PWM for controlling the speed via BIOS.

wow.. a quick Google comes up with the whole spec.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:29 pm

Bit more user friendly HERE. But yeah, Pugsley got it.