Graphics card driver

**shunt** · Jul 6th, 2002, 07:22 AM

Hi,

I have an old pci graphics card (Western Digital 90C11A). Windows 2k does not seem to have drivers for this card. Can anyone help me out?

**JungleMan** · Jul 6th, 2002, 04:03 PM

No drivers exist for this card, and WD can't help you either since they have exited the graphics card market. Sorry

Also, I believe this is an ISA video card, it's extremely ancient.

How old is your system exactly?

**siyan** · Jul 6th, 2002, 04:55 PM

If its that old, can't it run on some standard driver...?

-C

**nabeels786** · Jul 6th, 2002, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by shunt
old pci graphics card

it probably does run on the standard drivers, i doubt itll go higher than that since its so old with its own drivers

**Warmaster199** · Jul 7th, 2002, 12:58 AM

Ouch... Western Digital used to make video cards a LONG time ago... And they weren't that hot on the market either(They sucked - sorry to put it blunt) I've pulled Western Digital cards out of old 286's (all ISA).

You mentioned Win 2K. Look on the internet for Windows NT drivers. Win 2K is just a newer WinNT with a nicer appearance. Sort of like WinXP is Fisher Price and Microsoft(WinNT core for XP). NT is very old. Infact, the first NT(Version 3) came out in 1994, before there were PCI cards. So, you are in luck. Just look for the WinNT driver on the net for your card

**shunt** · Jul 8th, 2002, 12:40 AM

Thanks guys.

I got the card from a friend. I am trying to set up a dual monitor system. I got it to work with the wd c2 drivers, but it can only run 640x480 16 colors, and it glitches a lot.

I will try for an nt driver, but I don't think anything will work.

Thanks again

**Warmaster199** · Jul 8th, 2002, 09:05 AM

I don't think that 640x480x16colors is the limit for that card. 640x480x16 is what your windows defaults to because EVERY card supports that resolution(as well as 320x240x256color - but we won't go there...).

...And you're sure it's a PCI card... I haven't seen a PCI card with less than a MByte of VRAM, so that should let you get 1024x768x256 color (My 486 can do this mode). Just find the NT drivers.

**Warmaster199** · Jul 8th, 2002, 09:21 AM

I just did a search for your Western Digital 90C11 and it seems like you have a 16-bit ISA video card, not PCI.

PCI has a single connector, ISA16 has a large one and a small one. Your card has 256KBytes of VRAM, meaning that the highest resolution mode that you will get is 800x600x16 colors.

I'm sorry, but if this is the card, then it's probably not even worth the trouble to get a driver for it. It doesn't have enough VRAM to support 640x480x256colors, or anything higher. even 1024x768x16colors is too high a resolution... You can support 800x600x256 colors IF you can find the individual memory chips out there somewhere are upgrade the RAM by filling another bank. I suggest you get another card...

**siyan** · Jul 8th, 2002, 04:37 PM

If you're trying to get a dual monitor system going, just grab an old PCI TNT or Rage Pro...you can likely get 4-8MB versions which will do decent resolution/color depth

-C

**Warmaster199** · Jul 8th, 2002, 05:35 PM

Heh... yeah. I'm stuck with an ATI RAGE PRO Turbo 2x AGP w/4MBytes SGRAM - and it does the job, but it blows in intensively 3D stuff. Not enough VRAM to run Quake 3, but it can go to 1024x768x24bit color(On this monitor). You won't need more than that. I think that my monitor might even be the limiting factor in there, because I could've sworn I saw 1280x1024x24bit color in there before...

Right now it's at 800x600x24bits and it's good (I would like higher, but then my mom yells "I can't read anything" - whatever)

**shunt** · Jul 9th, 2002, 01:04 AM

You guys are right. It is an ISA card. Sorry, i'm no Techy...

All I want is 2 monitors for development. 800x600 is perfect cause thats what most people run these days. I can test the web pages in my 800x600 page to see what they handle the resolution. I have this set up here at work using the dell onboard graphics and an s3virge (PCI for sure this time). I see there is still room for an agp in this machine, so I'm going to hook up a third monitor using my spare agp card from home. What a difference it makes for coding and also general web surfing.

I think I'm going to toss the old wdc after all.

**JungleMan** · Jul 9th, 2002, 06:57 AM

Yes, good idea. PCI video cards are cheap these days if you ever needed one, I have a second PCI video card that I got for $5 from someone...it's for a dual monitor.

**shunt** · Jul 10th, 2002, 12:59 AM

haha... $5... I'm in south africa. Computer components don't come cheap down here. Thats why i'm trying to get this old card working. A matter of interest, how much does a GeForce 4 MX400 go for over there?

My friend works for an insurance company and sometimes people bring in computers with lightning damage. They let him take the old "broken" computers, and we strip what we can from the computer. We managed to build up two full systems (1x Celeron 700Mhz, 10GB & 6GB HDD, 128MB Ram, 17" monitor, 32MB PCI Graphics card, 48x CDRom, 1.4 Stiffy; 1x Pentium 300Mhz, 4GB, 128 MB Ram, 14" Monitor, 32MB PCI Graphics card.). Just enough to run as development servers. Ultamately, we are hoping to get a few more pc's to simulate server farms etc, and experiment with load balancing and developing of scalable enterprise applications. Still need some of the server software though. I think he's trying to get hold of Unix.

**JungleMan** · Jul 10th, 2002, 07:27 AM

Originally posted by shunt
haha... $5... I'm in south africa. Computer components don't come cheap down here. Thats why i'm trying to get this old card working. A matter of interest, how much does a GeForce 4 MX400 go for over there?

Do you mean GeForce2 MX400 or GeForce4 MX440?

The GF2 MX400s go for about $40
The GF4 MX440 goes for about $90

This is an ancient video card I was referring to, S3 Virge with 2MB memory..

**shunt** · Jul 10th, 2002, 09:27 AM

Ha Ha... Exchange rate +- R10 to $1....

I bought my GeForce 4MX for R2000. However, I got the S3 Virge for a little less than you... Free from work hardware department. They now have dell contract so all graphics are onboard.

Are you able to get AMD 1400 Thunderbirds over there? I am looking for this particular processor because this is the max my motherboard will support. I don't want to go AMD XP because this would mean buying new motherboard and RAM.

**JungleMan** · Jul 10th, 2002, 01:50 PM

Yes, it's not economical to buy one since the XPs are sometimes cheaper but you CAN get them...

**shunt** · Jul 10th, 2002, 01:58 PM

what sort of cost would I be looking at?

Actualy in addition to the fact that the XP way would be way too expensive at the moment, it also seems that none of the computer stores here sell Thunderbird chips anymore.

**JungleMan** · Jul 10th, 2002, 03:19 PM

If you were to buy a T-Bird in the USA, you can get a 1.4 for $90...

**siyan** · Jul 10th, 2002, 04:54 PM

Yeah, finding a 1.4 gig TBird would be rather hard...plus check to make sure they support SDR SDRAM if that's what you're running (I forgot totally ... )

Maybe check on E-bay if someone's auctioning some old AMDs..and score yourself some stuff that way

-C

**shunt** · Jul 11th, 2002, 01:11 AM

Good Idea

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