Cheap, half-height pcie x 1 Gen 2.x graphics card?

wombles

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Jun 28, 2014
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I have almost certainly killed the integrated graphics on my Intel DG45FC mini-itx motherboard while swapping the CPU cooler, but the rest of the motherboard may be ok. Can you suggest a cheap (UK £), half-height, pcie x 1 Gen 2.x graphics card (VGA or DVI necessary) which would work with this board to let me (1) confirm or reject my diagnosis, and (2) get my SSD sys-prepped for a new motherboard? I also use Intel E8500 CPU, 220W PSU, Samsung EVO 840 750GB. Ideally the card would be easily available on eBay UK.

Hope this is all the info you need but apologies if not - I have only used integrated graphics and may not understand all the issues involved yet.

Many thanks for any suggestions.

 
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I would recommend just getting a new board -- it will be similar in price to a low end card that will have no use later. If you indeed damaged your motherboard graphics with a cooler swap, it is unlikely that the graphics is the only thing damaged.

RealBeast

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I would recommend just getting a new board -- it will be similar in price to a low end card that will have no use later. If you indeed damaged your motherboard graphics with a cooler swap, it is unlikely that the graphics is the only thing damaged.
 
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wombles

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Jun 28, 2014
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I agree in principle. I wanted to do that, but it seems the DG45FC has very very limited availability at a sensible price. So plan B is to confirm the board is the problem (though, as you say, it may turn out too expensive to get a suitable graphics card) and then switch to another, more widely available LGA775 mobo asap if it is (eg DQ45EK). (The main reason for not buying it right away is that I would like to run sysprep on my existing Windows install, rather than do a clean install, as it took me a while to get right. AFAIK I won't necessarily be able to boot off my existing install if I just plug it into a new mobo, so can't sysprep the SSD without getting my current machine to boot with graphics. I'd be delighted to be corrected on that!)
 

RealBeast

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While I agree that you *may* not be able to boot off the same install, if you are running Win 7, I have had very good luck with modest motherboard changes and several times made two generation moves that worked. It took a few restarts but all drivers were correctly updated.
 

wombles

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Jun 28, 2014
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Thank you - that's useful to know. It's Win 8 but the replacement motherboard would be from the same generation and, most likely, still Intel. I'll do some googling to see what my chances are. It would certainly be easier to just try switching in a new board, as you pointed out yesterday.