Need help please (card just went belly up)

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xeddex

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
147
I would like to get some suggestions on a replacement card please. Thanks, here's the story.

My wife's computer is a Dell Inspiron 530 that has PCIe 1.0a

Stats here
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd530/en/OM/HTML/appendix.htm

I've had my old ATI 4850HD in it for quite a while (years) and it did fine until today. Constant video corruption and auto-reboot after about a minute so it sounds like a heat issue. The fan spins but it looks to me like this card is trash (the onboard graphics work fine so I know it's the card). That's ok, this card has served us well.

Anyways it's a 300w psu and I don't want to bother replacing it. I think if I dropped in something that was close to the 4850 she'll be happy.

What are my choices? I'm limited a lot by the computer without replacing parts and I'm not going to bother doing that on a system this old. Is there anything that I can pick up for around $100 that I could drop in and get close to the 4850 and still work?

thanks
 
holy crap I baked my card and it looks like it's back working again. 375F for 9 minutes; we'll see if it holds up.
 
What does your wife use the computer for? If its for gaming, I would pick up a 5670.
 
You can pick ATi 6670's for $75 and onwards on Newegg, they reckon they need 400 Watt minimum (including the 5000 range), or if you wanted something in the green flavour, GT 440's, or 250's (the Galaxy model looks nice) around $80, I know the 9500's will run on a 300 Watt PSU.
 
You may want to make sure that it is not the PSU that is going bad. A 4850 on a 300W PSU is already pushing it, and when the capacitors age... Anyway if you are sure that the PSU is still good, a 6670 should run fine on a 300W PSU. It will be a bit slower than the 4850 though.

If it is really the card that is dead (maybe check in another computer) and/or you are willing to upgrade the PSU, a 4870 can be had for $54.99 shipped http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103193
 
xeddex said:
holy crap I baked my card and it looks like it's back working again. 375F for 9 minutes; we'll see if it holds up.
Click to expand...

Good luck. I'm hoping you got a good paste application and made sure the fan was clean.
 
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