Computer Shopper October 2008
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I purchased a high-end Gateway desktop PC back in 2000 that still provides acceptable performance. The video card supplied with my machine is failing, however. Gateway no longer supports it, nor can it provide a replacement card that fits the motherboard slot. The original card was a 32MB Nvidia GeForce2 2x/4x AGP card. How to locate a replacement?
-Dan Gorby, via e-mail
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is the graphics-card interface that preceded today's standard, PCI Express (PCIe). Unless you change motherboards (a far bigger undertaking), you'll need to upgrade the card with another AGP model. Pinpointing a compatible one can be a little tricky, though. That's because unlike today's PCIe video cards, which are backward-compatible to the very first iterations of the PCIe interface, not all AGP graphics cards are compatible with a given motherboard's AGP slot.
AGP cards have a fractured compatibility history due to overlapping variations in data rates, electrical compatibility, and physical fit that appeared as succeeding generations of AGP cards debuted. All AGP cards support one or more data rates, indicated by the specs 1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x. Each rate is backward-compatible with the lesser ones. Where complications arise is with slot voltage; roughly around the era that AGP 2x cards debuted, new AGP cards began requiring a 1.5-volt current from their motherboard slots, instead of the 3.3 volts that was standard before. At the same time, new AGP specs mandated changes to the cards' physical connector to prevent cards from being plugged into voltage-incompatible AGP slots.
How to tell what you have? Remove the card from your PC and check the row of electrical contacts along the bottom edge. It will be split into either two or three clusters of contacts by one or two deep notches. If the card has just one notch, and the smaller of the two clusters is closer to the I/O bracket (the part of the card with the monitor port or ports on it), then you have an older 3.3-volt card. If there's one notch and the larger cluster is closer to the bracket, it's a 1.5-volt card. If there are two notches, the card is a "Universal AGP" card, which supports either voltage. (Given your PC's age, you probably don't have one of these.)
Now, check the motherboard's AGP slot. If there's a bar in the slot that matches the notch in the card, your new card must match the old card's voltage to fit and work. If the slot lacks a bar, it's a Universal AGP slot that should accept either type.
My advice: If you have a 3.3-volt-only slot, triple-check that any new card you buy actually supports 3.3-volt operation. Some Universal AGP cards, confusingly, support a newer spec called "Universal AGP 3.0"; some of these have only the 1.5-volt-connector notching and won't work in a 3.3-volt slot. Also, take heed: The last iteration of consumer AGP cards, "AGP 3.0" cards, technically run at 0.8 volt and are theoretically compatible with older 1.5-volt slots, but in practice, some act unstable or don't work at all in older systems. If you buy one of these, make sure you can return it easily if you run into trouble.
I'd like to install a DVD burner inside my Dell Dimension 4550. It's about six years old. How would I go about doing this, and what type of burner would I buy?
-Richard Borgognone, via e-mail
Any 2002-era PC almost certainly has only IDE drive interfaces. The first drives supporting the current drive-interface standard, Serial ATA (SATA), only began trickling out in late 2002 (and they were hard drives, not optical drives). A SATA interface on the motherboard would have been uncommon at the time in a mainstream PC like yours.
IDE optical drives are still being made, though, and they're very inexpensive. So-called "multiformat" DVD burners, which write to CD-Rs as well as the "plus" and "minus" variants of recordable DVDs, start around $25. Any of these will do; the main difference among them nowadays is not speed but the software bundle. The cheapest drives are "OEM" models—just a bare drive in a box. If you need basic burning software (and install instructions), look for a "retail" drive that comes with a suite such as Nero Express.
One other differentiator: Some current DVD burners support LightScribe, a technology that works with compatible media to allow laser-etching of text and images on the top of the disc. Because LightScribe support costs only a little extra these days (even though the discs are still premium-priced), it's worth getting.
As for the install, to replace your current optical drive with the DVD burner, simply plug the new drive into the same IDE ribbon-cable connector and power-supply connector as the old drive when you make the swap. Just make sure the new DVD drive's "Master/Slave" jumper—that tiny nugget of plastic that bridges a pair of pins on the back of the drive—matches the setting on the old drive. The three possible positions for the jumper are Master, Slave, and Cable Select. If you need to change it, use needle-nose pliers.
Installing the DVD drive alongside another optical drive requires a little more deduction. A PC of your vintage will have two IDE ports, each supporting up to two IDE drives, with each drive pair chained off a single cable. The IDE cable or cables will have three connectors: one at the motherboard end, one in the middle for a secondary drive, and one at the end for a primary or "Master" drive. It's best to attach the DVD burner to the same cable as the other optical drive, not along with a hard drive, for the best performance. If the new drive will be attached to the middle of the cable, set the drive to Cable Select (if the other drive is set to Cable Select) or Slave (if the other drive is set to Master). You may need to remove the other drive to determine its jumper setting.
Finally, considering the age of your system (circa 2002), check its hardware specs against the requirements of any DVD burner you're considering, as well as against those of its bundled software. You may need to upgrade the RAM, hard drive, or other components to use your new burner fully.
My computer can take two pieces of DDR2 667 RAM, but many places are selling faster RAM cheaper. Can I use the faster RAM, and will it slow down my computer?
-Martin Dixon, via e-mail
Two short answers: Yes, and no. Yes, you can use the faster RAM, as long as it's DDR2. Original DDR won't work. (DDR has 184 edge contacts as opposed to DDR2's 240, and is notched differently, so it won't fit, either.) Newer DDR3 memory has the same 240-contact count as DDR2, but it's incompatible, as well.
No, the faster speed rating on the new RAM shouldn't be a problem, but the new modules will run only as fast as the motherboard's front-side bus allows. That said, occasionally hardware that should get along doesn't, so buy your RAM from a seller with a no-hassle, no-restocking-fee return policy.
I'm trying to find a software program that allows me to operate two monitors separately from the same computer. Could you give me an idea of where to look?
-"Fidad4" via e-mail
You may not have to look far—most modern graphics cards employ drivers that incorporate dual-monitor functionality (such as ATI/AMD's Hydravision and Nvidia's nView), and multimonitor support has been a Windows staple since Windows 98. No additional software is needed, but your system must have a "dual head" graphics card with outputs for two monitors, or a second graphics card. Even the cheapest new PCI Express and AGP cards these days are dual-head, though. They come with two monitor connectors—two DVI, or one DVI and one VGA—that will support any combination of LCD and CRT monitors you might have (though you might need to use some simple adapters).
The functionality of Windows or your graphics driver will suffice for a basic two-monitor setup, whether you want to perform simple spanning (stretching the desktop across two or more monitors) or extending (allowing for multiple displays with independent resolutions, color depths, and other settings). But if your needs are more advanced, a few apps provide further functionality. The best known is Ultramon from Realtime Soft ($39.95, www.realtimesoft.com), which provides much-enhanced control over program appearance/resizing, screensaver configuration, and wallpaper display across two or more displays.
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