Graphic card issues!

[Carrigage]

I have no idea if it's allowed to post this kinda stuff here, but seeing as I'm turning desperate, I figured I might aswell do just that.

My friend gave me an Nvidia Geforce4 TI 4200 with AGP8x, with a busted up fan, which of course is no surprise cause those cards eat fans for breakfast.

And I currently have a;
- Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.80 GHz

And I dont know what Motherboard I've got, nor what kind of Electrical thing on the back, you know.. The one with the fan and where you insert the electrical cable and stuff. (Which my Graphics Card Fan is attached to aswell, since the card is too weak to power the Fan, Zalman Ultra-quiet something big-ass fan.)

When I first got the card, it had a broken fan, so I tied (YES, I TIED IT) another fan to the card, it fit perfectly, 'cept the result were weird graphical errors like red dots along the edges of folder windows, and that got stuck in the desktop, but disappear if I make any sort of changes to the desktop or move something atop of the red dots/lines.

Also, My old card didnt have support for Pixel Shader 1.1 (Ie. One used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R).
But with this new card in, I could start the game,and play for about 15 minutes, then it'd freeze. And during play I had those enormous Graphical spikes everywhere, and objects and stuff were stretched out and oddly shaped.

Then I attached the new fan, and tried again.. Same result, but less of it.
And I could play for about 30 minutes without the game freezing now.
I still occasionally get those red dots / Lines on the desktop and around the edges of windows.

Currently I have Graphics acceleration (or whatever its called in english.. Stupid Swedish Windows.) set to NONE, which fixed the red dots/lines, but as a result I cant play any games.


Oh, and I cant view .mwv files, computer crashes if I try to play one.


Other than that it ran smoothly... So.. Well...

My question is; Is there anyone here who have some moderate knowledge in these kinda things and could guide me in the right direction? What can I do? What should I think about? What could the problem be?

- AGP Indifferance?
- Too weak Electrical thingy in the back?
- Busted up graphics card?
- (ruling out overheating, since the fan I got could cool down a Nuclear powerplant and solve the global warming at the same time.)

To me, this is sort of important.. I'm unemployed and quite poor, and when I found this incredible fan for barely nothing, I was thrilled!
But I cant afford a new graphics card.. So you might understand how this sucks.

- Carrigage

EDIT: I've found out what Motherboard I've got, its a GIGA BYTE, GA-8IGML-T, which has:
1 x AGP 4x, supports 1.5v display card only

So.. What version card is the Nvidia Geforce4 TI 4200 with AGP8x?
Since it supports 1.5v display cards only.

One obvious observation is that it has AGP 4x support, and the card has AGP 8x.
I have no idea if its incompatible with the motherboard, and/or if it can be fixed someone through hardware without changing the motherboard, or if I can fix it with some sorta software.

 

[GST_Nemisis]

all the components you describe are quite old, perhaps 8 or 9 years old. the first computer i got had an nvidia 5600 graphics card in and since then i have kept with the times and if it were slightly newer i might be able to help you. i didnt even realise they made 4200 cards tbh. my main advice to you would be to either A. buy a new computer or B. post this thread on a web site which has more technical support. we are a wc3 forum, and while someone here might be able to help you, you would have better luck if you made the post in the right place.

but if this helps at all:

not enough power from the PSU usually results in blue screens of death, your computer wouldnt really work at all if it were that. but being a computer and computers being rather trickey i wouldnt rule it out entirely.

as you mentioned your mother board supports 4x but your card is 8x AGP. this might be the problem, i would search more into this if i were you.

 

[Carrigage]

all the components you describe are quite old, perhaps 8 or 9 years old. the first computer i got had an nvidia 5600 graphics card in and since then i have kept with the times and if it were slightly newer i might be able to help you. i didnt even realise they made 4200 cards tbh. my main advice to you would be to either A. buy a new computer or B. post this thread on a web site which has more technical support. we are a wc3 forum, and while someone here might be able to help you, you would have better luck if you made the post in the right place.

but if this helps at all:

not enough power from the PSU usually results in blue screens of death, your computer wouldnt really work at all if it were that. but being a computer and computers being rather trickey i wouldnt rule it out entirely.

as you mentioned your mother board supports 4x but your card is 8x AGP. this might be the problem, i would search more into this if i were you.

I appreciate your advice, and I posted here because this is the only forum im a member of.
I'll try to see if dig something else up on the net.

Perhaps if I save up money I'll be able to afford a new computer in a few years!

 

[Wolverabid]

Hardware conflicts and issues can sometimes be difficult to solve (especially for non-hardware geeks).

On my own site (click my signature image to access the main page)
I list a few support sites that might help you find a solution.

 

[brad.dude03]

Well, I think I found your problem. You're trying to run an AGP 8X video card on an AGP 4x motherboard.

You think his is old? I have an ECS Elitegroup mobo right now Thank god I bought new parts