Question Old PC and old GPU ?

[dverdier]

I have an old HP Pavilion that has the Holly 2 board in it. I have multiple ssds in it and use it as a sort of media server by just sharing folders on my local network. It used to also be the main machine for playback in the room I have it in. I've built a new pc but I don't want to run it all the time just for a movie. It's a gaming pc. So I bought the highest cpu and ram avaiable for the holly 2 when I decided to turn it into a "server." It needed it anyway. The problem. It isn't strong enough to playback any 2160 media files.

I looked around for the highest pci 2.0 gpu I could find and everything I'm reading says it can do that. It's PNY geforce gt 710. The next one up was pci 3.0. It does have somewhat higher specs than the integrated one. I seem to get the exact same performance from it though. It will not do 2160 any better than the a8 3870k does. When I installed it, It scared the crap out of me. I installed it and upon restart I got a black screen, 6 beeps followed by more black screens and every so often the cpu fans would ramp 100% for a min or two. After a few restarts, it finally gave me Windows.

While geforce experience and physics didn't install, the graphic driver and audio drivers did. Also, for whatever reason it will not run my screensaver anymore. I get a generic one that says I need a gpu that's compatible with direct3d. I can't imagine that gpu being newer than the apu isn't capable of running a basic txt screen saver. This is why I think something is wrong with the installation.

I'm afraid to shut it down again because I don't know if it will do all that boot up crap again or go normally. So what do you think? Is there a way to squeeze more out of it or is it just not going to be able to playback 2160 files? Why does the screen saver not work? I got the recommended driver from nvidias website for this card on win7. And while I removed the amd graphics software, I'm afraid to remove the driver in case I can't get it to boot again, there will be two options for the video signal. However, when I had the black screen at boot before I had nothing from either of them until it kind of just fixed itself and I got something out of the new one.

 

[Eximo]

GT710 was not a good choice, but where did you get it? I suspect it may not actually be a GT710 if it is complaining about not having typical features, there are a lot of fakes out there. May also not have the proper hardware decoder for whatever format you are viewing. It is a very basic card.

You don't have to limit yourself to PCIe 2.0 cards, you can plug a PCIe 4.0 card in there and it will work, not that you should. Anything that doesn't require supplemental power should be fine.

GT1030 or RX550 would be my HTPC cards of choice these days.

 

[punkncat]

I tend to agree with the above in this case. Return that old 710 if you can. IMO it might even be worthwhile to consider a 16xx if you can afford, fit, and the power supply to that old beast will run it. I would suspect that unless you have replaced that in its life span it will be suspect.

 

[dverdier]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. I thought no one was posting because I hadn't received any notifications. I'll have to look into that. I paid I think 40 couple bucks for it and it was supposed to be new old stock. I didn't see anything that would make me think it was fake. I don't rem what was on the dye, but I redid the thermal paste on it and I'm pretty sure it was what it was supposed to be. I just looked up the 1030 and I don't think I need to spend $140 dollars just to be able to playback 2160p video media. Or do I? I want the bottom bottom card I can get for this being that I built a badass pc that I use for anything high end. It's just this one even with the 3870k sometimes struggles w/ 1080 anymore. It will not be doing any gaming, only streaming or vlc playback. From what I read this card should be able to do what I want but maybe I was misinformed about what the highest 2.0 card was too. You're saying that 3.0 cards will work just as well. Wouldn't they be severely limited by the, I guess it would be bandwidth?

 

[dverdier]

They were unchecked. by default. That's wierd. Normally these places want to send you as many emails as they can. Again, I'm sorry. I was not ignoring the thread or your advice.

 

[BFG-9000]

What kind of 2160 media files? You'd expect a 3GHz K10 processor to be able to play in software "4k" (3840x2160) H.264 files at 24 or 30fps OK, but choke or drop frames at 60fps (as the HD6550D in that APU cannot hardware accelerate 4k decode, so software decode is all you get). H.265, VP9 or AV1 would be out of the question as there's simply not enough CPU power for those at 4k (which is, after all, 4x the pixels of the 1080p which barely works).

The Kepler GT710 you bought only adds hardware assist for 4k H.264 so should only add the ability to play 60fps H.264 files. It does not accelerate any other 4k file types. For AMD, GCN 3.0 Tonga does full hardware decode of 4k H.264, and some later versions can also partially assist 4k H.265 just like early Maxwell such as GTX750Ti.

A 2nd gen Maxwell GTX950 or 960 would add full hardware decode of 4k H.265 (Main and Main 10 profiles), DCI (4096x2160) and VP9. Pascal GT1030 or GTX 1050 add hardware decode of Main 12 H.265 too, at up to 8k. GCN 4.0 Polaris like the RX550 can do full hardware decode of 4k H.265 and partial assist for VP9.
AV1 acceleration was not added until nVidia RTX 3000 series or AMD RX6000 series.

The trouble is the Holly 2 board only has UEFI if it was factory equipped with Windows 8. If your Holly 2 board originally came with Windows 7, then there is no BIOS upgrade to UEFI available. And that's a problem because it's a crapshoot if a GTX 950 or GTX1030 or RX550 will boot properly in Legacy BIOS or not. They usually work, with the systems giving the most problems being those 11-year old ones that were available in both UEFI and Legacy BIOS versions like Sandy Bridge... and your AMD. So even if yours happens to be a very early UEFI implementation, it can still be a problem.

So the safest solution most likely to work is to transcode all of your media files into something less compressed, provided of course you have the extra storage space and network capacity to store and stream those. Or if you are willing to roll the dice, a used GTX950 or 960 goes for about $50 nowadays and can also encode, unlike the GT1030 (so could both help with the transcoding job and directly play the VP9 or H.265 videos).

 

[Tac 25]

agreed with @Eximo . GT 1030 and RX 550 are good choices for old pc's.

have used a GT 1030 for awhile on an old pc here at home, and it worked without problems.