Hardware Question

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 11:16:26AM -0400, Stephen W. Clarke wrote:
> I've been using an old HP Vectra VL (PII-266) as a monitor to keep tabs on
> the systems in my rack. Recently a co-worker gave me a used 21 inch
> monitor (IBM P260) to expand the visual real estate on my system. I'm
> enjoying the extra desktop space but the refresh rate is driving me nuts.
> (60 Hz). I'd like to upgrade the video card but don't want to buy one that
> won't work. It will have to be PCI, support 1600x1200 at 85Hz and run with
> the existing PSU (124W).

What is the current video card?  What kind of system has a 124W PS?

> I tried a Radeon 9250(64-bit) that I had in the office but the system
> wouldn't post with it in. I've been looking at either a Radeon 7000 (no
> fan) or a Radeon 9000 (with fan).

The BIOS didn't like it?

> Do any of you have recommendations?
> 
> I'm running a dual boot system of Puppy Linux and Ubuntu 7.10, but with
> video cards as old as the one's I'm looking at, drivers shouldn't be an
> issue.

Getting a PCI video card is getting harder.  Getting one that uses low
enough power might be nearly imposible, especially since it has to be
high end enough to drive the display at that resolution and refresh.

My recommendation is to do one of:

1) Live with it, since hopefully you don't look at the screen very
often.  Costs nothing except possibly your sanity.

2) Reduce the resolution to 1280x960 or 1152x864 to get decent refresh.
Costs you some screen space but no money.

3) Buy a better computer with a sane power supply.  You can pick up "off
lease" business machines with P3 for about $100 and P4 for about $200
which will probably drive the screen just fine, and will be much better
performing machines than the P2 crap box.  Costs a bit of money and
possibly uses a bit more electricity (not that running a 21" CRT is
cheap).

4) Buy a 20" flat panel instead so that 1600x1200 at 60hz is in fact
perfect.  Dell has a 2007FP model that is 1600x1200 for $389.  So cost
quite a bit, and who would want such a nice screen on a monitoring
machine.  Doesn't make sense unless you actually look at it a lot.  This
would recuce the power expense by quite a bit over the 21" CRT of
course.

--
Len Sorensen
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