Yes Rich --a huge percentage of people are in that position. Some on older
PCs don't have the slot for some of the newer higher end cards, some need
new PSUs for sure when they upgrade their cards and you have to be careful
because so many of the OEM named partners although not all have proprietary
wiring systems and don't even sell the PSU upgrades and then you have to go
to people like PC Power and Cooling who are very reliable and good at what
they do www.pcpowercooling.com/products/ (not all are sold in large stores
like Fry's even the ones a particular company makes and buying can be
tricky). As to mobos needed for cards, of course it depends on the cards.
I was told that only certain of the Nvidia newest cards like the 7950 are
mobo specific and not even some of the later cards so if a forum doesn't
answer it for you like Dell Hardware which is very good or Nvidia or
countless other excellent hardware forums, you can always call the Tech
Support number for the card that is a gleam in your eye.

But with this Vista wave and duo core etc. wave now, many are in the
position of how much do you upgrade that old computer including RAM which
costs a lot more for high quality RAM on older boxes or do you take that
money and buy or build which is more fun a new pc?

It is obvious that if anyone is willing to wait a few months, because of the
Vista momentum dove tailing with all the new processors and hardware, there
will be more variety and more deals than there are at this moment. I know
we are in the Christmas shopping season but still I belive the best choices
are gonig to be in the early months of 2007 and then throughout 2007 if you
are in the market for new pcs in a small business or home context or a
context that is both.

You can get that box to work extremely well and you will. I can't emphasize
enough between the forums like Nvidia or the Tom's Hdw type or the Dell or
some of the excellent gamer forums and just calling tech support for the
maker of some of the NVIDIA cards, you can get excellent info. This is not
like the awful state of tech support for software which is not near as good
on the phone as you're going to get from a lot of the people who help in
these groups. The Nvidia card makers have dedicated pc builders and gamers
and graphics mavens who do tech support. They know the drivers that are
coming out for the cards in this challenging period as well as anyone and
they do a great job.

Also be sure to check out www.extremetech.com who always do a great job with
forums and articles and are strong in MSFT products, hardware, Apple, and
Linux. These are the guys from PC Magazines lab and the guys who work with
Jim Louderback who used to be at Tech TV and now is Editor at PC Mag. It's
a very helpful site.

CH

"Rich Milburn" <richdotmilburn@applebeesdot.com> wrote in message
news:4bf871662680e8c8e593f02cb16e@news.microsoft.c om...
>
> thanks - I'll look into that. I've debated replacing the card, but if I
> did that, I'd want to get a PCI-E card. If I did that, I'd have to
> replace the motherboard (I got one with AGP to accomodate the free video
> card!). And if I did that, well a core duo sure would be tempting. But
> this Sempron 3100+ is actually pretty fast, and since I don't really do
> any gaming, it's fine for most of my purposes. So I'll try to get it to
> work.
> Rich
>
>
> MSFT Trades Swag to MVPs for Support, Defense, and Blind Allegiance"
> mvpendorsementsforswag.net, (aka Chad? wrote:
>
>> Rich--
>>
>> I haven't used that particular card. But in talking with people who
>> test and tech support a lot of higher end GeForce cards in getting the
>> best driver for my own, the information is that for many of these
>> cards, there are several driver choices. For mine, there are about
>> five right now although that could have changed in the last week (as
>> you know changes happen rapidly with these drivers and Vista). I was
>> given a recommendation to use a driver that wasn't the newest. I've
>> since tried every driver available on Vista including the newest beta
>> driver, and they have all been fine. But some of these drivers
>> "freeze/lockup" and others don't. You might want to give the tech
>> support number for whomever makes your card a call--they are often 24
>> hours X 7 days and just excellent. Many of them test these cards with
>> some of the newest machines and they also have collected data on which
>> drivers for your particular card have ben reported as problemmatic.
>>
>> There also are the Nvidia forums and the excellent gamer and hardware
>> site forums as well.
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>>
>> "Rich Milburn [MVP]" <richdotmilburn@applebeesdot.com> wrote in
>> message
>> news:CDE31B3D-ADCE-457A-ADE2-32E4CF93466C@microsoft.com...
>> Hey has anyone used a GeForce 5500 and seen it freeze up, and hours
>> later
>> (12-24) it "recovers?" Mine seems to lock up, it's done so on several
>> builds and RTM, and 32 or 64 bit. I've used the in-box drivers and
>> the beta
>> nVidia drivers, but I haven't tried the ones that I think they just
>> released
>> (like 2 days ago, if that).
>> Thanks
>> Rich
>
>