Low Power Video Card Suggestion

[hollow5555]

Hi guys,

So I tried to assemble a PVR for my family room (I have one in my bedroom, but wanted one for the family room as well). So I went out and got a PVR-1600 capture card and put it in my spare Dell GX270. It turned out the motherboard on the Dell was fried, so I picked up a cheap, used, small form factor IBM Thinkcentre (2.8ghz P4, 768MB of ram, and a 200gh Hard Disk. It has a built on video card, but I added a spare I had with S-Video out (Radeon 9250 chipset with 128mb of ram). I get everything installed and the picture on my tv (standard definition... nothing fancy) looks AWFUL. The contrast is way off, the picture is bowed at the sides, and the colors are wrong (blues show as either reds or black... go figure). I tried tinkering with the settings in the ATI Catalyst Control Panel, but it didn't help. So I tried a series of cables (both S-Video and RCA with an S-Video adapter). So far nothing has worked. I decided to try it on a different television to make sure it wasn't my tv, even though my VCR and DVD Player both work fine. On the second tv, the one I have my other PVR hooked up to, it only shows black and white!

At this point I think the video card I'm using is messed up, huh? It's the same chipset as the one that's in my other PVR, but the manufacturer is different. I went online looking for a new video card, but I see a lot of cards now have power requirements (250->300 watt mostly). The computer I'm using (IBM Thinkcentre 8183) only has a 200 watt power supply because it's a small form factor PC. Do I really need to worry about this? Can someone suggest a video card that would work for me?

Thanks in advance

[stustunz]

the card you are trying to use should work
different drivers can make a big difference have you tried older drivers
have a look to see if there is a jumper on the card saying pal/ntsc

you are pretty limited these days as to what video card you can get that are not pcie

[hollow5555]

the card you are trying to use should work
different drivers can make a big difference have you tried older drivers
have a look to see if there is a jumper on the card saying pal/ntsc

you are pretty limited these days as to what video card you can get that are not pcie

I agree it should, but it doesn't. Maybe it's just a bad card. Either way I probably need to buy a new one. I'll try different drivers and see if that makes a difference, but I'm not expecting much.

[hollow5555]

the card you are trying to use should work
different drivers can make a big difference have you tried older drivers
have a look to see if there is a jumper on the card saying pal/ntsc

you are pretty limited these days as to what video card you can get that are not pcie

Older drivers didn't work. I have looked around online and I've found no shortage of PCI video cards, so finding one won't be the problem, it's finding one that fits my needs/requirements that I want to make sure about.

[Hayden]

You card sounds like it's working, it maybe just the output format. Did you check the PAL/NTSC thing ?

It maybe an option in the Catlyst Control Center, US (& Japan ?) is NTSC, most of the rest of us are PAL

Hope it helps

[wtg]

For a very comprehensive review of ATI and NVidia video card power requirements, see this article: http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&c=7&t=9354

[hollow5555]

You card sounds like it's working, it maybe just the output format. Did you check the PAL/NTSC thing ?

It maybe an option in the Catlyst Control Center, US (& Japan ?) is NTSC, most of the rest of us are PAL

Hope it helps

I did actually sort of get it to work. I did some more intense wiggling of cables and the S-Video started working. I would have PREFERRED to have the S-Video feed into an S-Video->RCA adapter and use that, but when I do that all I get now is black and white video, so I'm guessing S-Video->RCA adapters are more or less crud, huh?

Oh well, it appears to at least be working now. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks for the help!

[bogyver]

Some times you have to change a setting in the video card config to set it for composite video output when you convert the svideo with an adapter. also try unplugging your cables and replugging them in firmly to ensure good connections. The black and white with svideo can also be caused by bad connections or bad cables.

[hollow5555]

Some times you have to change a setting in the video card config to set it for composite video output when you convert the svideo with an adapter. also try unplugging your cables and replugging them in firmly to ensure good connections. The black and white with svideo can also be caused by bad connections or bad cables.

Yeah I tried reseating the cables several times, and I tried several adapters. I also didn't see any settings in the drivers, but I'll keep trying.

I did get the S-Video working so it works fine and I'm more or less happy. The TV it's hooked up to is a little old, though, and so it only has one audio input that is shared between the RCA and the S-Video inputs. So in order to make it all work I have to switch to the S-Video input on the TV and then use a second remote to switch the audio input on the DVD Player/VCR (which is doubling as a switch for the audio input). The DVD/VCR is sticking around because of the large collection of VHS tapes my family has. They do use them on a regular basis, but I'm hoping in time once they get used to the PVR it'll fade and the setup will simplify itself... either that or I just convince them all to buy the biggest flatscreen with the most inputs!

Thanks for all of the help guys! This is consistently the most useful/helpful software community I've been a part of!