Is my AGP slot dead?

OvenMaster

OvenMaster

VIP Member
About two weeks ago, I had trouble booting my system (as shown below).

When I pushed my rig's power button, the fans spun up, but my hard drive light glowed steadily and I got a black screen. I would need to push the reset switch for a warm boot, and everything would boot up normally.

As I was replacing my known-to-be-dying PSU, I noticed two leaking caps and two bulging caps on my PNY-Nvidia FX 5200 256MB AGP 8x card. I replaced the faulty caps with new aluminum-polyester types.

I was only able to boot up in Safe Mode. Installing the 175.19 Forceware drivers (the last ones released for this card) would fail halfway through... my monitor would go black and only display an "OUT OF RANGE" message.

I took the card out and installed it in an old Emachines. Booting and installing the Forceware drivers went without a single problem, proving my videocard repair job was satisfactory.

I tried installing the card again in my system shown below. All I can get is Safe Mode, so I'm stuck with crappy S3/VIA onboard video.

It looks to me like I can no longer use my AGP slot. Everything else on my pc works fine, but is it possible that one of the leaking/damaged capacitors took out a part or two on my motherboard?
 
Seems like you've successfully eliminated all other possibilities quite well, must be the slot. So, new motherboard and/or a complete upgrade is in order.


Here's a dirt cheap upgrade....but be advised there's only 1 IDE port on this and also you'll need a PCIe video card as no new boards have AGP anymore-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138294

If you can spend a few bucks more, this is actually a much better board overall-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157204
 
Thats a better idea anyway, wasn't sure if you'd go for that if I posted that suggestion but yeah definitely the better way to go :)

If you get an Athlon II quad you can easily keep it under $200. Good motherboard choice BTW, thats not a bad little board at all.
I know of a Phenom II 925 for sale for $90 shipped actually right now on overclock.net if you were interested. Thats a pretty good deal, Phenom II for the price of an Athlon II quad.
 
Great idea, but I can't really buy anything right now... I just paid $60 for a new EarthWatts PSU and another $20 for a Noctua 80mm fan (should have bought that fan years ago). That's why I need to start socking away my pennies and keep this thing limping along for a while longer. :P
 
Ah, I feel like a total noob.

I just remembered today that I didn't reset my CPU to stock clock speeds when trying to install the Nvidia drivers.

Removed the S3 drivers, installed the card, rebooted into my BIOS, clocked to stock speed, reboot, install my Nvidia drivers, and presto. A great-working AGP card once more. :D
 
Honestly the onboard video of that Gigabyte 760g board would probably be as good if not better than that AGP card!
 
87dtna said:
Honestly the onboard video of that Gigabyte 760g board would probably be as good if not better than that AGP card!
Click to expand...

Oh, I don't doubt that one bit... but I'm pretty much blowing moths out of my wallet at the moment. When I do buy new stuff, maybe next year, I more'n likely won't need a PCIe card at all, not for what I do.
 
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