300W PSU - Radeon X1300 Pro

[mep916]

In 2003, my wife bought me a Sony Vaio PC for Christmas. 3 1/2 years later, I have unsuccessfully attempted to upgrade my video card. First, I tried a Radeon 9600. Didn't work. Then, I tried a GeForce 6200. Didn't work. Both cards were unstable. Finally, although this is hardly an upgrade, I installed a Geforce FX 5500. The original card was a Radeon 9200. I am getting ready to attempt my final upgrade - a Radeon X1300 Pro.

I know the simple solution would be to buy a new power supply. However, Sony Vaio power supplies are proprietary - a standard atx PSU will not fit the case (tried that too). Another solution is to build a new system. I plan to do this early next year.

I have read other threads that discuss power supply overloading issues when installing a video card in a system with an under performing PSU.

My solution is the following: I have disconnected the second internal hard drive. I disconnected the second DVD ROM drive. Disconnected the floppy drive. My goal is to create more power for the X1300 Pro.

Does anyone think this will work? Has anyone successfully installed an X1300 Pro or similar card with an underperforming PSU. Does anyone have any additional advice?

System Specs:

300W PSU
Pentium 4 2.8 CPU
2 GB DDR 2700 RAM
GeForce FX 5500 GPU
Seagate 500 GB Hard Drive
Dual Boot XP Pro - Vista
TV Tuner (Possible power hog)

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Jet]

It is very close either way. My suggestion would be to either build a new computer now, or just deal with the low graphics quality. None of the cards you listed are really that great, and won't do terribly much to help.

 

[mep916]

I think I solved that problem

As a novice enthusiast, I began to become more and more frustrated with trying to upgrade/mod my OEM Sony Vaio PC. A couple weeks ago, after a "few" drinks, I hit the Newegg website, and ordered the parts for my first custom machine (see signature).

This machine is a beast! The build went flawlessly, although it took several hours to put everything together. The Antec Nine Hundred is great, however, I will probably move everthing into a full tower case in a couple months - very little room to work with.

Overclocking the CPU and memory was a breeze. Unfortunately, the Q6600 (B3 stepping) started blowing chunks above 3.2 GHz. From what I've read, every processor overclocks differently, and I'm satisfied with the results.

As for the Sony, it's attached to my home network and being used for miscellaneous backups and file transfers.

 

[PC eye]

The reason the Sony supplies are proprietary in appaearance is that they are AT not ATX size supplies for the narrower style AT size cases Sony uses. You should take a look at their options forf upgrading to see if they carry at least a 350 if not 400w model for adding in a better card. I ran the MSI version of the Radeon X1300 Pro PCI-E model here for a year on the 939 build. While not being a high end gaming card it did serve well for running more recent games like Half Life 2, Fear, Prey without ptoblems.

Good luck with the new build there! You'll enjoy it hopefully without seeing some of the problems plaguing a new one here first needing a replacement board and now seeing software/driver issues clashing with system files. This is being seen on XP Home while the installation of Vista on another drive in the case went smooth as silk with the same video and sound cards. Try an OCZ 700w model for the supply in the Antec 900 here seeing cpu idle temps as low as 21C.

 

[mep916]

Yeah, I contacted Sony over a year ago to see if they could pull a power supply fron a higher end Vaio model. They were willing to sell me a 320W for $279 - with no guarantee that it would fit my case!

I did try to install the Radeon X1300. The card, due to power requirements, slowed my system down considerably. I absorbed the 15% restocking fee and RMA'd it back to Newegg.

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles on your end. I've had very little technical issues with my new build. The nTune software bundled with the 680i drivers is garbage. Windows Vista has been very reliable. The Dreamscene desktop background is cool, and I also like the Resource Monitor.

Quick question. Is Vista x64 better than x32? The only advantage I am aware of is the ability to expand memory.

 

[PC eye]

That's precisely the point when going with a 64bit version of XP or Vista over the 32bit main stream. You can break through the 3gb barrier. One article seen lately points another problem seen however on the newer boards with the 8 and 16gb capacity where the chipsets used are still meant for boards with only 2-4gb capacities. One article mentions seeing only 7gb recognised on an 8gb model for that reason.

$279 for a 320w supply? That would be a ripoff there fast. I thought seeing some sites selling the 700w OCZ model here for over $200 was a bit high! But they get you where it counts is the best expression for just about any proprietary system.

Dell had their supplies on older models seen with the bolt patterns just a little different so you had to buy a larger supply from them only. The Sony models are made similar by simply being more of an AT style case where the supply you would want is strictly atx.

The problems with the clean installl of XP Home here started after installing the new Creative sound card and it's autoupdate feature went after Vista drivers not XP! It didn't know that XP was the version? So much for their new softwares. As I mentioned on anotther thread give me back the old Sound Blasters over the new Xtreme Audio or Gamer which see problems like that.

 

[mep916]

$279 for a 320w supply? That would be a ripoff there fast. I thought seeing some sites selling the 700w OCZ model here for over $200 was a bit high! But they get you where it counts is the best expression for just about any proprietary system.

Exactly. I do understand Sony's position, however. OEM machines are not built for people like you and I. They're built for my grandmother.

The problems with the clean installl of XP Home here started after installing the new Creative sound card and it's autoupdate feature went after Vista drivers not XP! It didn't know that XP was the version? So much for their new softwares. As I mentioned on anotther thread give me back the old Sound Blasters over the new Xtreme Audio or Gamer which see problems like that.

Man, there's nothing worse than a quality piece of hardware coupled with horrible software. That's the problem I had with the Nvidia nTune software packaged with the 680i drivers. None of the "utilities" worked. Hopefully Creative patches the Auto Update program to correctly recognize the proper OS.

Did you have to reinstall XP?

 

[PC eye]

No I haven't done anything quite yet as far a repair install but did manually edit the system registry as well as manually removing the Creative folder in Program Files to remove the traces in order to install fresh. The problems being seen however were after the first install of about 4 times initially with the software cd. Sound problems lead to removing that and then the Windows update link saw the update go on while there. When that still saw problems the removal for the original then saw the auto updater update3 Vista message come up.

I wonder about the first install and that causing all of the problems there. The first instinct here besides manually removing the software/drivers again would be a repair install since something is seeing problems with the dll library. At startup a pair of popups have been continual since the initial installation.

"The proceedure entry point_except_handler4_common could not be located in the dynamic library msvcrt.dll" and "error loading P17runE.dll" have been constant along with seeing win32K.sys and P!7xfilt.sys messages seen when Windows first boots up to the loading personal settings screen and then the desktop where the second appears.

This is an annoyance with the Visual Basic being seen there. But this is still all software not hardware related there where a repair install is the option for fixing that. I had some fun over the last year with the old 939 build and the Audugy 4 Pro there. But this was a first seeing it going for a Vista update while running XP for a Creative card. For you the problem is hardward namely the lack of a supply adequate for upgrading the card on the Sony model. The X1300 Pro is not a high end model either.

 

[mep916]

Assuming you didn't backup your system before the Creative install, I think a repair from the XP CD would be your best bet. I've done it many times, and it usually resolves problems with corrupt/missing system files.

For you the problem is hardward namely the lack of a supply adequate for upgrading the card on the Sony model. The X1300 Pro is not a high end model either.

Hopefully, I'll never need to open the case to that Sony again. I've lost interest, and no longer need to upgrade that machine.

Good luck with the repair!

-Michael

 

[INTELCRAZY]

Yeah the G0 stepping is way better and b/c of the 1333FSB, too. I had an X1300PRO for a while and ATI's drivers were crap. I heard that ATI REALLY improved their drivers for the 2xxx series especially the 2900's. Kudos to ATI for that, I just couldn't get any of ATI's files to quit magically dissappearing.

 

[PC eye]

I just upgraded from the 939 build running the X1300 Pro and never saw one problem with any updates for unlike the crap I'm putting up with on the new Creative card. When going back to Creative and selecting XP it still saw Vista Update#3 download! That's the 7/3/07 update over the 12/6/06 XP update being installed now to replace the Vista version.

When tested the latest driver set for the 2600XT was not any better then seen with the X1300 Pro. One game crash while testing how one game was going to work here saw an ATI driver involced while the rest was Creative's new mess! Now to see if the 2006 update cleans this up?