1900x1200 res. on Intel 82845G????

[deerslayer_1704]

Hello All,
I have an emachine T3958 pc with an integrated Intel 82845G video card. I recently purchased a Gateway FDH 2400 24" wideescreen monitor with a native (preferred) resolution of 1920x1200. I have the latest driver installed for this crappy video card, and still no option for my preferred resolution. Is there any way I can get the 1920x1200 resolution out of this card? If not, is it physically possible to install a better card in this PC and somehow override the existing card which is built into the motherboard? Also, if I can put a good card in, would I be able to use the digital imput instead of the analog that I have to use now?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with this problem.

Steve

[jbennet]

if its not a desktop then yes, you can easialy replace it with a card with a DVI output. You wont need a very expensive one as you probably wont be playing games. First though, you would need to find out 1) how big your power supply is and 2) Whether you have an PCi-Express or AGP slot

[deerslayer_1704]

It Is a desktop, and the power supply is 300 Watts. I'm not sure about the slots, I'll have to check on that. But here are some specs on the machine if these help..........................CPU: Intel® Celeron® D 340 Processor
Operates at 2.93GHz
256KB L2 cache and 533MHz FSB
Operating System: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home

Chipset: Intel® 845GV chipset
Memory: 512MB DDR 333
Expandable to 2GB
Hard Drive: 80GB 7200rpm, 2MB cache
Optical Drive: DVD±RW, 16x Multi-Format double layer
Media Reader: 8-in-1 digital media manager
Video: Intel® Extreme Graphics 3D
64MB shared video memory
Sound: AC '97 audio
Network: Intel® PRO 10/100Mbps integrated Ethernet
Modem: 56K ITU v.92-ready Fax/Modem
Peripherals: Standard keyboard, 2-button wheel mouse, amplified stereo speakers
Ports/Other: 5 USB (1 in Media Manager, 4 in back), 1 VGA external connector, 1 serial, 1 parallel, 2 PS/2, 5 audio (2 in front, 3 in back

I also have upgraded the ram with an extra 512 MB.

[jbennet]

it could be either. look inside - agp slots are (usually!) brown and pci-express slots are (usually!) black - you should only have 1 of them

[Serunson]

Also to the side of the slot itself, it says if it is a PCI-E x16 slot in white text on the motherboard. If you are unsure what it is, post a photo of the slot here as an attachment to your next post.

[deerslayer_1704]

First of all, I'd like to thank both of you for taking the time to help me out with this. As I'm sure you've already guessed, I'm not too pc savvy. Anyway, here's a picture of what I think you want to see to answer my slot question. Let me know if it helps.
Thanks,
Steve

[jbennet]

oh. they are all standard PCI slots. You wont be able to upgrade yur graphics card then :(

[deerslayer_1704]

Well, That's not what I wanted to hear, but I guess this pc is what it is. I've had another suggestion to use a program called entech powerstrip . He said the program is a "trial before you buy" and he changed the resolution in the registry, then just deleted the entech program. Any thoughts on that or other ideas? If not, I suppose Ill just have to be satisfied with my display set at 1680x1050 untill it's time for a new pc. It looks pretty good, but I've seen this Gateway monitor set up in a store, and know that it is capable of better. I'll keep an eye on this thread for a whle in case anyone else may have an idea. Thanks to jbennet and Serunson for your efforts.

Steve

[jbennet]

you can get plain old PCI cards i think, but i think they suck

[deerslayer_1704]

After learning about "slots" in this thread, I now know I am limited to a standard PCI video card. So I ordered one (PNI verto GFORCE 5200). Definitely not the best card out there I'm sure, but the cost was very inexpensive, and since the maximum resolution is 2048x1536 I should be able to achieve my native resolution of 1920x1200. I couldn't find any PCI cards with the HDMI output I wanted, so I guess this will have to do till I get a new pc.
The next challenge will be getting this thing installed and disabling my integrated card without losing my ability to see what I am doing. Keep your fingers crossed for me JB!!!

[jbennet]

stick in the new one

then go into the BIOS and disable the integrated one (should be under something like "integrated devices" - on my pc i set it to autodetect which means it uses the addin card if present, else the inbuilt one)

the new one will look crappy first time. Thats because you havent installed the drivers yet. Might be a good idea to use ones from the manufactuers website instead of the CD.

You can get DVI to HDMI adapters . UK or USA?

[deerslayer_1704]

It sounds simple enough. ....USA... the card I'm getting doesn't have a DVI output though. Just tv (svideo) and 2x vga.

[jbennet]

dont know then

[deerslayer_1704]

Just wanted to write to let you know my new card is installed, and I now have my native resolution. I should have looked a little harder for a new card though, because the one I got only has VGA output. After I ordered it I saw that they do make PCI cards with DVI outputs. I'm not sure how much better the DVI would have made the picture look since I've read varying opinions on it, but having the correct resolution alone has improved the image. Thanks again!!

Steve