Hd 5450 poor performance and line accross bottom of screen

[alohascott]

I am trying to fix a computer for a friend and he has his radeon 5450 with 1gb ddr3
this exact card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161322

anyway he wants to run dual monitors so i have it set up one on the vga and one on the dvi when i run windows experience index it comes back at 4.6 for windows aero
i have never had a score that low even with onboard graphics.

also there is this line that keeps showing up at about 20 percent up from the bottom.

please someone help
i promised it would be ready today any time

 

[Onus]

That is not a high performance card. It is fine for a HTPC or for general and office work, but not for games. If he wants to play games, he will need a more powerful card. Check out the monthly "Best Graphics Cards for the Money" article for suggestions based on his budget. Keep in mind that his PSU may limit the card he should get. Without further information, a HD5670 with GDDR5 should run on whatever PSU he has if it is at least 300W and would be a substantial upgrade.
As to the line on the monitor, is this on both monitors, or just one of them? If just one, when you switch them, does the line stay on the same monitor or move to the other? If it moves, the card may have a RAM problem. If it stays on the same monitor, he could have a row of bad pixels on that monitor. Recheck your cable connections too.

 

[alohascott]

understand not high performance card
but lt should be able to beat out onboard video
4.6 is the worst score i have EVER SEEN

 

[alohascott]

how to test the card for ram problem?

 

[alohascott]

is the fact i have it hooked up to two monitors affecting the score?

 

[Onus]

is the fact i have it hooked up to two monitors affecting the score?

Possibly; I don't know how Microsquishy computes their score. It's easy enough to test though, just take off one monitor and see how it does.

 

[alohascott]

not much difference
i also tried an old x800 card and its about the same with the two scores reversed from the 5450.

i think i will look for a stronger card next time.

 

[alohascott]

updated video drivers and changed the motherboards ram and the problems went away.

 

[alohascott]

I found a deal on hd 4670 for $30 open box and bought 4.
since its 128 bit is it going to perform better then the 5450?

is there any benefit to crossfire the 4670?

 

[Onus]

Although it's fairly weak by modern gaming standards, the HD4670 is way better than the HD5450 for games.
As for Crossfiring two of them, I would think that microstuttering and driver glitches would outweigh the limited performance benefits. With four of them on hand, sure mess around and see, but I doubt you'll stick with it. Don't bother if the mobo runs the second PCIE slot at only x4 though; you want at least x8,x8.

 

[alohascott]

Best answer selected by alohascott.

 

[alohascott]

cool.
thanks