[NTLUG:Discuss] new board and video card

[Kelledin]

On Saturday 07 December 2002 11:28 pm, Christopher Baker wrote:
> This is more of a general hardware question than a Linux one.
>
> I have been working on a P3 450 as my main machine and decided
> to upgrade it to a P4. I bought an Asus P4B266-C with a P4 2
> GHz and 512 MB. My video card is an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 and
> works great.
>
> I may have a problem. The Asus manual says only to use +1.5V
> video cards and not to use +3.3V cards. It says that a +3.3V
> card may damage the board.
>
> So, what is the voltage of this video card? I had never heard
> of an issue like this before. I checked out ATI's web site and
> found no information about the voltage.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions?

In a perfect world, I would say that if the card fits in the 
slot, it will not fry the board.  AGP cards and AGP slots are 
supposed to be keyed (via notches on the contact edge) so that 
it's physically impossible to install an AGP card in an AGP slot 
unless both card and slot will agree on a compatible voltage 
level.  Alas, this is not a perfect world, and there are a few 
AGP cards out there that aren't keyed correctly.  This is 
especially problematic, as inserting an incorrectly keyed AGP 
card in your motherboard will likely fry some hardware.

You can find out more about the problem--and a testing procedure 
to see if it affects you--here:

http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2001/agp4x_e/

It's pretty technical, but if you know how to handle a 
multimeter, you should be fine.

-- 
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does 
it still cost four figures to fix?"