I'm thinking of upgrading an older puter of mine. It's an 800 mhz thing with an S3 Savage 16M AGP video card in it now.......if I get an ATI Radeon 9200 or All-in-wonder 128MB 9600 AGP card.......will that be an upgrade?? I sure don't want to buy something retro for it; but I already stuck a Cirrus Logic card in it and THEN realized that it was for Win 95 or 98 and was totally an old old card -- duh... somebody help a tech dummy........

Liz, I am no tech myself, but with today's prices, you might be better off thinking of getting a newer, faster computer. Dell and all the companies put on great sales between Nov 1 and Christmas. Then you can keep your oldie just the way it is and you even have the monitor etc to go with it.

That said, I have had good luck with nVidia cards.

Good luck!

Thanks, raylinstephens....that's exactly what i've done....this 800 mhz is my "mid-grade" system......I have an XP computer to play new games on and an old 266 mhz to play King's Quest, etc. But the Radeon cards i'm looking into only run about $100 and I thought it may be a good investment for my mid-grade; but only if it's better than the S3 Savage 16M AGP that's already in it. Good advice.....raylin!! Thanks!

Well, a Radeon is a more modern card than the S3 Savage. 16 MB of video RAM isn't much. But make sure your motherboard has the right voltage on the AGP slot to accept the card you buy for it.

Thanks, Jenny100, I wouldn't have thought of that; how do I check the voltage??

If you have a manual for your motherboard, the AGP slot voltage may be mentioned in there. If it's a name brand computer and the card is what came with it, you might find the information on the brand name website, or you could try emailing their tech support. Or if you're having someone replace the card for you, you could tell them what kind of card is in it now and ask if the voltage is the same as on the card you want to get.

I'll have to figure it out then, I guess. I know I don't have a manual; it's an old computer that was discarded at work. And I'm planning on replacing the video card myself. It's not that hard to do; I'll just have to make sure the voltage is the same. Thanks so much, Jenny100......your advice is always great!

One more option since this is the route you are taking. When in doubt, you can bring the computer into a store like Office Depot or Best Buy or Circuit City and they will do the guessing for you. I know they would do the installation too but I don't know how much they charge. So, wherever you plan to buy the card, let them help you.

Very true, Raylin......though it's simple enough to install the card myself; my husband and I have done it tons of times over the years. Video cards, sound cards, hard drives, CD-rom drives......we've done it all; usually the hardest part is getting the case open!

Okay, techies......here's the next dumb liz question. I reinstalled the S3 Savage4 card into the 800 mhz puter (taking out the Cirrus Logic card); but I can't get Win 98se to display more than 16 colors and 640 x 800 res. The card is seated; but there's a conflict (i can tell by the yellow explanation mark in the device manageer). Is that a driver issue?? I keep trying to install different drivers; but it doesn't seem to be working; and it keeps telling me i have the best driver already installed. (btw, I have the drive partitioned and the Win 2000 partition is fine with at least 16 bit color and higher res. What is dumb Liz doing wrong?? (I actually had it at one point after first installing, but then I don't know what happened and now I have nothing but 16 colors and can't figure out how to fix that) Thanks for all the help!!! I don't know what I'd do without you guys!!

Try using Driver Cleaner to remove the remnants of the drivers for the other card. Then install drivers for the S3.

Here's one place to get Driver Cleaner
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3214.html

Thanks Jenny100.......i'll give it a try!!

Okay, Jenny100......I finally got it. My old s3 savage4 is back in the 800 mhz puter and I have 16 and 32 bit color and high res. NOW.....if I want to upgrade that; I have to check the voltage like you said. But also how do I know if I need an AGP or a PCI card? I can get either with a GeForceFX 5500 card; but don't know how to tell which one I need and I don't have a manual with this computer cause it was donated where I work. (The PCI card is $10 more) Please advise......or maybe I should just leave things alone.....!!!

You can tell if it's AGP or PCI by the type of slot.

For example, check this picture of a motherboard (which is a PIII motherboard)
http://soyousa.com/images/products/800x600/7vba133u.jpg

The five white slots are PCI slots.
The dark slot to the right of those 5 slots is an AGP slot.
Computers often have more than one PCI slot.

This motherboard (the Soyo SY-7VBA133U) is one of the last models to include ISA slots. The two long slots on the left are ISA slots.

Thank you so much, Jenny100, for the picture. I'll have to take another look inside my computer......this will be a GREAT help!! So it's possible to have PCI and AGP slots on the same motherboard, right??? Thanks so much; this is great information to have!!