BIOS settings. AVG or PCI. What does it do?
 

During my pootling with the graphics card, I noticed that the BIOS was set to PCI . I changed it to AVG and as far as I can tell, it's slowing it down!


BTW, an upgrade via one of these Refurbished things is NOT the way forward. They really are 'built down' to a price.

PCI or AGP, perchance?

The card will be one or t'other. Should say on the box.
There's another clue in which socket on the motherboard the graphics card connects to. If the socket is dark brown, it's AGP. If it's white, it's PCI.

Setting to the wrong socket won't improve performance.

Hah! I wrote that as though folks were hanging on my every word. The continuing saga of Rivet's quest for a perfect picture.

Having put in an AGP upgrade card, the picture was okay, but very slow to paint...sometimes. Hitting it with its own PSU seemed to do the trick. However, I just happened to notice that the BIOS was set to PCI.

I elected not to mention the fact that I hadn't noticed that. Well, the PSU did seem to be the issue. But then I put the BIOS to AGP. Power okay, and the right slot selected, now we're cookin'.

Nope, it was slower.

I put it back to PCI, and it was back to its improved state.

In an uncharacteristically modest moment, I bellowed to everything listening - namely the cat - that I hadn't got a clue as to what was going on. ;)