Sounds like your Compaq is a micro-ATX board and the power supply is likely
to be a smaller micro-ATX power supply, compared to the dimenstions of a
standard ATX P/S.  This will be your limitation when looking to upgrade your
power supply, it will need to have external dimensions that will fit into
your case.

220 watts is not a lot by today's standards, but it is fairly typical for a
micro-ATX system.  I wouldn't think that you would have much trouble
upgrading to the the MX4000 card from the Geforce2, but this is because the
chipset is essentially the same.  Although Nvidia calls these MX cards
Geforce4s, this is rather misleading.  The feature set is the same as for
the Geforce2s.  The MX4000 does have faster clock speeds than the original
Geforce2s, I believe; so, it will be somewhat faster, but I wouldn't
consider it s substantial upgrade.

Perhaps you could say a little about what computer uses are prompting you to
think about a new video card, and folks here could suggest whether or not
the cards you are looking at will get the job done for you.  Just as a
general comment, unless you are playing computer games that require 3D
rendering, chances are that the Geforce2 will be fine for desktop
applications.  What it lacks are the hardware capabilities for the latest 3D
rendering bells and whistles found in DirectX 8 and 9, especially the
various new shader technologies.

John Sproule

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julie" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:00 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Video card/power supply questions


> I'm looking for some general information about upgrading my current video
> card and whether or not I'll need to upgrade my power supply as well.
>
> I'm only thinking of getting a modest card,nothing fancy, just anything
> better than my current Geforce2 32meg card. I'd like to avoid replacing my
> power supply if it's at all possible.
>
> 1) I noticed while pricing cards that some video cards have power supply
> requirements listed on their boxes but some didn't. If they don't list a
> requirement, does that mean that the watts of my power supply won't matter
> to that particular brand and I can install the card without replacing my
> power supply as well?
>
> According to my documentation, I have a "steady-state 220 watt" power
> supply.
>
> 2) If I do wind up needing to replace my power supply,would a stronger
> supply be harmful for the other components,such as the motherboard, in the
> computer? How high can I go safely? 300w or even 450w?
>
> An example of a card I'm considering now is an ASUS V9400-X/TD/128
> Geforce4
> MX4000 128MB 64-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X. It has a Geforce4 MX 4000 chipset and
> is
> AGP 4X/8X, My current setup is only 4X.
>
> (I have a 3 year old Compaq Presario Athlon XP 1800+,512 megs ram,Geforce2
> with 32 meg graphics card,Windows XP SP2 and one each of AGP and PCI slots
> open,220w power supply)

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