a hard hardware upgrade

Lennart Sorensen lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
Tue Nov 11 15:33:36 UTC 2008


On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 03:09:41AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> I recently bought an inexpensive off-lease HP Small Form Factor
> computer from Factory Direct:
>   http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/product_spec.php?pcode=HP0515
> 
> Built like a tanks.  Unfortunately it has only Low Profile sockets (2 x 
> PCI, PCIe x1, and PCIe x16).
> 
> It has DVI-D and VGA out.  But I need analogue video out for my 
> application (HTPC with an old TV).
> 
> So I look for a cheap Low Profile video card with analogue out.
> 
> The only one I found was this:
>   http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=017062&cid=999.243.390
> According to the online inventory, I got the second-last one in their
> system.  Cheap due to rebate.

So what you might really want is something like this:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=014473&cid=999.243.390
along with one of these:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=015259&cid=999.956

> It comes as a full-height card.  But there are two "plates" to replace
> the full height one that is installed.  (By "plate", I mean the metal
> bracket on the end of the card that sticks out the back of the
> computer.)
> 
> I switch plates and try to install it.  It will not fit!  More
> correctly, it will fit but it cannot be installed because there is not
> enough clearance.
> 
> I end up removing the motherboard, installing the card in the
> motherboard, and then installing the motherboard.  Or trying.  Even
> that doesn't quite work.  I have to remove the plate, install the
> motherboard, place the plate in its final position in the case,
> install the motherboard, and finally attach the plate to the card.
> 
> When I've done that, I turn on the computer and find that it all
> works!  Except that the card's fan is too loud for HTPC.  Oh well.
> 
> (With this card, glxgears using the nv driver gets about 240 fps.
> With the proprietary driver, between 1900 and 2000.)
> 
> I thought that the proprietary driver might be able to throttle the
> fan but that seems not to be the case.

Or perhaps it really has such bad ventilation is a crappy case like
that, that it really does have to keep spinning like crazy to try and
cool off.  Those business desktops were not meant to any kind of
performance work.

The DX5150 also has one of the worst chipsets I have ever seen.  I
remember lots of problems on lkml with people trying to get them to
work, and plenty of workarounds having to be done due to hardware bugs,
BIOS bugs, etc.  I wouldn't have paid $90 for one of those.
HP + ati chipset + low profile.  There is nothing there to like.

-- 
Len Sorensen
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists





More information about the Legacy mailing list