Hey everyone! Love the forums here, and have been a long time lurker learning a lot from everyone! Anyways, here is my problem..: I have an out-dated Dell Dimension 4550.. Built I believe in 2002-2003.. Here are my specs..: Brand: Dell Model: Dimension 4550 Operating system: Windows XP SP3 PSU: Stock 250W Motherboard: Intel 845PE Chipset CPU: 2.53Ghz P4 HDD: 60GB (Very puny I know, soon to be upgraded) RAM: 2x512MB = 1,024MB = 1.024GB Stock video card: 32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra AGP-2x/4x (Terrible) To-be-installed video card: Nvidia GeForce Ti4600 128MB AGP-4x/8x I'm pretty sure thats most of what needs to be listed.. If not just ask.. Now, I realize that this is a very out-dated computer, which is exactly why I only spent $35 on this video card. I know lots of Dimension 4550's were factory built with this exact same video card in them.. So I removed the old ATI Rage and installed the new GeForce4.. Booted up.. And random numbers and symbols appear like {} [] so forth.. Then the screen goes black and comes back up with vertical rows of 9's.. As it continues booting up, the screen flashes black, then red lines appear.. Then the Welcome screen fades in and there are blue lines vertically.. Then I log in and the lines turn yellow.. All the while, the GeForce4 is displaying on my monitor fine (minus the lines).. But when I try to install the Forceware/Drivers, all chaos breaks loose.. The driver installation screen pops up, starts installing the proper driver, then the screen flashes and goes black and the computer becomes unresponsive but is still running.. I then have to manually shut down, replace the G4 with the Rage, then install and reboot with the old ATI (At which time everything works fine immediately on startup and forward from there..) I removed the old driver before putting the new card in too so that can't be the problem.. I tried the newest driver as well as archived drivers.. Didn't work.. I troubleshooted.. Searched tons of forums.. Checked Microsoft's MCL compatibility list.. And Nvidia GeForce Ti 4600 was clearly listed as compatible.. Basically I am going crazy because I know it is possible to run this card on this computer.. But for some reason my luck runs up and kicks me you know where. Is it not possible for me to run this card? Do I need to download a rolled back driver since my computer is fairly old? Changes in the BIOS? If anyone can help me out even in the smallest amount, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time! ~Tony
Hi, Sounds like you may have a faulty card, i would try it in another system if you could to test it out. Here is the DELL driver but i assume you have already tried it.
Hey Jodav, thanks for the quick reply. Yes I have tried the Dell drivers specified for my personal machine.. They work more than the Nvidia drivers.. Although I couldn't download them directly from the Dell website because they are corrupted files for some reason.. So I had to go through a 3rd party.. (CNet).. But this time at the Welcome screen, the monitor flashed black but did not go into sleep mode, but instead stayed blank for a couple minutes then went to the blue BIOS failure screen "Has been shut down to protect.." blah blah blah. SO here I am, with the nasty 32MB card back in. I'm not giving up though. Thanks again for your help!
Technical Specifications link http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4550/specs.htm#1101572 AGP bus protocols 4x/2x modes at 1.5V your board appears not able to run that card according to dell specs.
I see. So my motherboard isn't pushing enough power to the video card/AGP slot..? The board is 1.5V Dell spec, and by doing more research, I believe the card requires 2.8V for the Samsung memory chips.. Does that mean I need a new motherboard and PSU? I knew I would be better off buying a Quad Core or i7 ha.
is just not the wrong voltage but the bios is not set for 8x agp. if you do not want to buy a total new system then get a new case that is not a name brand like dell, ibm or hp. get a motherboard that can use your parts like cpu, ram, drives but has a 8x agp slot. the new case might come with a psu so get 1 if doesn't. problem now is can't use the dell system recovery disks but would have had that even if bought a new clone quad/i7 system.
The board is too old for the card. It is designed for the first generation of AGP graphics cards, around the 2000 era. Although the card you're installing is 7 years old, the motherboard's AGP bus is older still. If you want more graphics power, you're best off slinging all of the components and getting a new PC, especially if the CPU is socket 478, which it probably is. Today's sub $50 home video graphics cards are over 50 times, maybe even 100 times as powerful as the Rage Ultra.
Yup, Socket 478. I bought it around 02' so it would make sense to have an out-dated AGP motherboard on it. Just mad because they guy I bought it from said it works on Dimension 4550's and 8200's.. So I figured since it was only 128MB then my old board would be able to handle the old card.. Guess not.. I guess its time to save up and get an M9X1.. The time has come!
Custom built by a friend of mine. M9X1 is just the name of the case, so thats what he calls it by..: Brand: Whitebox (Custom built) PSU: 750W liquid cooled OS: Vista Ultimate 64-bit CPU: Intel i7 Quad Core OC'd to 3.6ghz HDD: 1.5TB RAM: 8GB DDR2 1066Mhz - Upgradeable to 16GB - (If you can even find 4 x 4GB RAM sticks.. at a decent price without spending more than you paid for the computer..) Video: 2 x 1GB ATI Radeon 4800 HD SLI's in Crossfire mode Primary Drive: Blu-Ray disc burner/player, DVD+RW Dual Layer burner/player, CD+RW disc burner/player.. All in one! Cooling: 3 x 120MM fans up front and 4 x 80MM fans (2 side, 2 back) - All wired to an LCD front display with Temperature in F* and C*, and knobs to adjust the speed of each fan for optimal power consumption and cooling.. Those are just the specs at a very very far glance (off the top of my head..) But now you get the point of why its called the M9X1.. What I'm shooting for here.
Never heard of it, presumably a cheap OEM case. It's a reasonable PC but it's not very balanced in terms of hardware. Liquid cooled PSUs are completely unnecessary and overpriced, the HDD is presumably a single, which is a bit weak given the rest of the system's specs. If you build a similar system, you can do much better than that! (Oh and by the way, 8GB of RAM for an i7 is epic fail, it should be 6 or 12)
Again, all the specs are off the top of the head so RAM could be wrong. But its 1,000 times more powerful than this hunker and at just over a grand the price doesn't seem deadly. If I knew more on how to build a computer from scratch then I would consider. But I wouldn't want to buy a piece of hardware that isn't compatible or won't act on peak performance. Thats where the experience come into play. I don't know, I guess I will keep browsing around for another one.
no, that's why you ask here. Building a PC is easy, and shouldn't be overlooked, you save so much money that way.
Yes you do have a valid point in saving a lot of money. I have to get accustomed to this site more, even thought the basic layout is familiar with the forum sections.. Is there a friend request system on here so I can keep close references..?
Sam, you missed the most glaring error... It's DDR2 RAM The X58 motherboards only accept DDR3 But yeah, we'd all be happy to help you put a PC together ^.^
So it is. The PC is already built though, so it clearly isn't DDR2. It is still possible that an i7 PC could have been built with dual channel memory.
