graphics card on test bed

[ed_tait]

hello,

i've got this old computer that i am planing to use as an os test-bed however the current graphics card is dead .

i have a newer card but the manuel says the minimum requirement for the 'package' is a pentium 3. the computer in question has a pentium 2.

does this requirement refer to the add on drivers included or the card itself?

[Bob the Avenger]

i have no idea, NOT being an expert on these things, i would just throw the new card in and wait for something to start smoking

[blip]

I think you'll be fine. The CPU requirement is probably taking into account what the user may want to do with it like playing games or watching videos. I doubt the drivers were compiled to run on PIII+ only but you never know.

[Candy]

That very probably points at the windows driver requirement or what's mentioned above, that you won't be able to use the entire speed of the card since your cpu couldn't keep up. Short, it's probably bull.

However (!):

- It might only support AGP 4x+ or 2x+ etc. If you have an old mainboard (p2 sounds old enough) this might be something to check.

- You might not be able to plug it in at all (pci-e card on an agp system, agp card on a pci-only system, pci card on a very old isa/eisa/vlb/mca system)

- It might have an incompatibility with your chipset, although this is pretty damn unlikely.

[srg_13]

- You might not be able to plug it in at all (pci-e card on an agp system, agp card on a pci-only system...

I wouldn't worry about that unless it doesn't have an AGP slot. Also, you need at least a LGA775 socket (Pentium 4) or a Socket 939 (AMD Athlon) and an nVidia chipset for a PCI-E slot.