Low-Profile Graphics Cards?

thebrix asks: "I've acquired a Dell OptiPlex GX150. It's a pleasant machine to use - small, quiet and uses only 145 watts at full tilt with my flat panel - but its Achilles heel is the feeble i815 on-board graphics which steals RAM from main memory and plasters black bars onto my KDE desktop at inconvenient moments. There's a 4xAGP slot, but it's low-profile because of the small chassis and finding a low-profile graphics card is proving difficult because, invariably, manufacturers are more interested in listing whizzo features than how big the card is. So far, the Matrox G550 Dual DVI is the only card I've come across which definitely fits. Does anyone know of others?"

Comments

huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?q=low+profile+agp

Can't you get an agp bus extension at an L?

[linzeal]

I thought I saw an AGP bus extension at an L at fry's (I know they have them for PCI), so long as you are not using any of the probably first few pci slots you could do this.

Try the Asus V7100 Pro

[Mifflesticks]

Check out http://navasgrp.home.att.net/tech/low_profile_vide o.htm

He says that the Asus V7100 Pro (http://www.asus.com.tw/vga/agpv7100pro/overview.h tm) will work (he has even more stringent requirements than you, it seems)

did you try ATI?

[Galahad]

When I worked there, they made a low-profile card for use in a riser assembly. It might have been OEM only though, I don't recall.

Nvidia Quadro 4 200NVS

[pcmills]

I have one of these working in a small form factor Compaq/HP. Quadro 4

Stick with the G550

[brejc8]

I say stick with the G550. I have one in the office and its very vice with two screens.
By the way The VGA/DVI version is low profile too.

Re:Stick with the G550

[EvilBudMan]

This card is highly regarded too. Dual monitors are cool.

Re:Stick with the G550

[brejc8]

The best thing was it came with linux software on CD.

NLX vs ATX card styles

[dpilot]

I believe I may have run into this, before.

You may want to look for cards that advertise 'NLX' compatibility. The NLX I/O shield is half as high and twice a wide as conventional card IO shields. (also known as ATX, perhaps overloading the motherboard acronym) A few years back I installed a G400 in a system at work to replace the planar video, and it came with an NLX shield in the box. A few moments to change shields, and it was in and running.

GeForce 2 MX

[decep]

Most GeForce 2 MXs are relatively low profile. I'm sure there are some low profile GF4MXs out there.

Re:did you try ATI?

[flux4]

I retail ATI in Canada and they don't have any low-profile cards available for me, boxed or OEM. If they did, I'd be a happier retailer.

Second hand?

[tsa]

I also had a 815I. It's a pest. Why don't you try a second hand diamond Viper 550 or 770?

Modem

[b0bby]

I have a GX150 too & I was looking around for a low profile modem without much success. I just ended up with a standard modem in which the pcb was small enough to fit & I cut & bent the bracket. The case doesn't need screws to hod the card in place so you don't have to do anything fancy.

Re:Modem

[Yogger]

I actually have a winmodem that came with a GX150 my work bought. I know that it fits and works perfectly, it was just sent by accident one time. Let me know if you need another one.

Had a similar problem with an i810 card

[Dave114]

Someone else discovered that adding Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "Yes" to your video card config in xf86 v.4 would solve that problem. Maybe it'll also solve your i815 problem.

Hardware Forums

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried asking this question on the HardOCP forums (www.hardocp.com)? I would imagine that it would give you much better results there.

Have you tried Dell?

[Yogger]

For a while my company was ordering the GX150's with an extra video card. Something from ATI I seem to recall. You might be able to order whatever card it was seperatly.

Try This

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a card called Gainward GeForce Powerpack Pro/450 TV. Not only is it less than two inches high it gives me TV out as well. I posted a Slashdot topic on this about a year ago and got lots of info - anyone care to find it ?

Catherine Ellerman

I have a G150 as well....

[Anonymous Coward]

...and there are Geforce 2MX and ATI Radeon's that will fit. I am currently using an ATI Radeon VE. You can check www.newegg.com for them. I dont know if you searched hard or not, but just look for half height in the description. I had to modify the mounting bracket on mine. I believe half height AGP cardsa are 2.5" tall, but that is off the top of my head.

short video cards

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is going to sound bad, but apple had to put video cards that were 5.5" long in the cube. they sold cubes with ATI rage 128 cards, and ATI rage radeon cards, and with NVIDIA geForce 2 cards. you might be able to find one of these "apple cube compatible cards" on ebay, etc.

Here's a thought

[glens]

Go to the Dell link you provided and click on the "Tech Specs" tab/link in that page; then click on "Learn more" for the graphics options about 1/3 of the way down the second page. That will give you a couple of quick ideas.

Re:did you try ATI?

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife has a Dell 4300s (slim desktop) which utilizes an ATI Rage 128 "low profile" AGP card (32MB). Looks like they run $59 at Dell. Cruise around http://accessories.us.dell.com and search for product 320-0189

Under Windows (yeah I know, poo poo and all that) it's got enough 3D oomph to run SereneScreen aquarium without any trouble.

As mentioned in other posts, I've also seen nVidia GeForce-2MX cards small enough. Theoretically you could cut off the unwanted portion of the backplane to fit.

Dell has em

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell has a list of video cards that they shipped with the system and still currently sell.