Video Card

[TimCha]

Hiya
I'm in search for a Standard PCI video card for a Dell Dimension 2400 for around 35 bucks. Looking for a 512mb size, and a 64bit. Looking for one to run a Windows 7 for the church audio needs.

[[Admin] osborn4]

PCI or PCI eXpress?

What will you be using it for?

I usually just go to NewEgg and TigerDirect and see what they have.

[TimCha]

From my understanding, its a standard PCI only. Im using it so the computer can run Windows 7 on the computer. Thanks, Tim

[[Admin] osborn4]

Ah yes, the 2400. We had one of those for our projection machine for a while and had a bunch of trouble with the standard PCI card. (SongShow Plus on Win XP).

Very glad to get away from it and on to a machine with a PCIe slot.

Here's what NewEgg has. Seems like I recall having mostly bad luck with Jaton and good luck with EVGA. The other names don't look familiar to me.

[prochlea]

Any reason you need Windows 7? I'm guessing that even maxed out at 1GB of Ram, this old of a PC isn't gonna run windows 7 well.

[TimCha]

I thought windows xp is getting obsolete and no updates, I wanted something more streamline for our audio recording needs. So I thought windows 7 would be more smoother and faster for the audio stuff.

[prochlea]

If it were my machine - I would keep it as XP. As long as you aren't using the machine for normal email and browsing, the updates shouldn't really matter much. Windows 7 uses way more computer resources than XP, and on that old of a machine - XP would definitely run smoother. Load it up with Audacity, and AVG, and you should be fine.

[prochlea]

As a side note - I still use XP for everyday use on my work computer, and never have any problems. Even though it's "obsolete" it's still more than acceptable for most uses. I have a gov't client at work that won't even allow windows 7 pc's on their network because win 7 still hasn't been certified for running on their network.

[Tekguy]

I agree with Pat on everything except AVG (free or paid) the newer versions have gotten kind of bloated and tend to slow your computer down more than the older versions get Microsoft Security Essentials - light on resources and the pocket book (FREE). That 2400 will be a dog with 7.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Microsoft will be providing security fixes for Windows XP until April 2014. I support about 4500 XP machines at work, so I'm very familiar with that date. However, you need to be on SP3.

Watch the licensing of free versions. Many of them say they are not for commercial institutions. Although our churches are (generally) non-profit, they are still commercial.

Microsoft Security Essentials can be used for free on up to 10 machines. If you need more copies, you are supposed to pay.

We use Microsoft Security Essentials (at church and home). If we had/could go to a paid antivirus, I'd go back to Eset Nod32.

[TimCha]

Thank you all for your assistance and help all made a lot of sense to me. I will start over and do a clean install, I appreciate your help. Blessings, Tim