How do I know?

[savejs]

Am new at this game. Have PIII, 550 Mhz, 128 Ram PC that is freezing on many PC games. Have 3D Blaster Savage 4 Pro Video Card, running Windows ME. Have thought of buying new video card to solve problem. How do I know if I presently have AGP or PCI? version of card? Would GeForce 4 MX440-SE (64MB) help me? Thanks in advance and sorry for my ignorance.

 

[bloaty]

The enternal strugle and the ever present question. It could be the video card, then again it could be a lot of things.

Well the first thing id do is format your computer and reinstal everything with the latest drivers ect. If you still have the same problems then you might have a hardware issue. Again its hard to really know the problem is without testing all the components seperatly.

 

[1gr8hntr]

First off, check and make sure that your PC meets the system requirements for the games you are having problems with.
Second, to see if you have AGP or PCI look at the mother board where the vid card is plugged in: if it is pluged into one of 5 or 6 lightly colored (very light tan) slots then its PCI. If the slot is darker (almost brown), a little further in from the back of the case (about 2 inches) and there is only one of this slot, then you have AGP.
I wouldnt buy a new vid card unless either you want to get a new one any way or that it doesn't meet the system requirements.

 

[Crashman]

First thing I suggest is thuroughly dusting the inside with compressed air, as you might have a heat problem! Then a new video card would be the second thing.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Earthdog]

Have you changed the CAS latency on your ram in BIOS? This can cause the symptoms you describe. If so set them back to stock speeds.

Also, you might need a bigger power supply. Getting anything less than a 400 watt PSU is sort of a waste of time as the prices on them are about the same as 300 watt PSUs.

When looking at your mainboard youll note that an AGP slot is set about an inch more toward the center of the MoBo and is usually a different color than the PCI slots. This is so you can't accidentally plug a PCI card into it.

The MX440 is a pretty quick little card. So much so that you might want to consider upgrading to a new CPU and mainboard. A 550MHz CPU simply doesnt have the cahonies to push that graphics card. With the newer faster CPUs coming out you can pick up an AMD Duron 1.3 GHZ for about $40. Why not??? Then you can shell out $70 for a new mainboard to go with it and your new graphics card and youll have a game system that rocks

If its not broke dont fix it.