Re: [PLUG] Choosing a cheap video card

[Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>]

On Sun, 2004-11-07 at 00:35 -0500, Pablo Tao Virgo wrote:
> The driver works, as far as putting graphics on the screen and
> accelerating 3d. The problem is that it also adds random horizontal
> lines to the desktop which don't prevent me working but annoy me to no
> end. It's a recent development, coincidental with me switching to debian
> from gentoo. I don't want to flood the board with complaining, since I
> posted earlier about it, a cheap and temporary fix would be nice until
> the driver gets fixed or I can afford a more compatible card.

Pablo,

I see no such issue with my Radeon 7500 and XFree86 under debian
unstable. Have you considered that it might really be a coincidence that
it started happening when you switched distros? As Andrew Bradley
pointed out in his reply, horizontal lines does sound like a symptom of
a video card that is going bad instead of a driver problem. 

I suggest trying the gentoo live cd as a test, since that should have
the same X version that you were using before. If the problem remains, I
would assign the blame to the hardware.

As for a replacement, a Radeon 7500 or bare-bones 9200 variant can be
had for just under $50. If your current video card has suffered a
hardware failure, then that is how I would replace it. The Matrox
drivers are good and the image quality is great, but I was unable to
locate a Matrox card for much less than $90 (I didn't look that hard...)
and the 3d performance is pretty weak.

-- 
Will Dyson <will_dyson@pobox.com>


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