My bro in law has just got one of these pc's

http://www.dealtime.com/xPF-De ... D-RW-AGP-Video-Card-Integ

All i need to know is, is it possible to use the PCI expansion slots in PC's to run a graphics card from, as the original is an AGP and with it being a slimline case im not gonna get a normal sized one in the original AGP slot without having to run it with the lid off!

Not gonna set the world alight i know, but its better than the old pentium 2 450mhz machine he had before, plus all he wants to do is have a playable LFS, plus by the time i have filled it up with maximum possible RAM and a good GFX card he should be good to go above 4fps, which he had before!

I don't wanna start plugging cards in willy nilly unless i know it will be ok.
If it does work, then maybe i can get a decent card in mine as well!

Thanks in advance.

You *could* put a PCI GFX card in there... but it'd be shit.

AGP is the better option - are you sure you can't find the a half-height AGP card?

It's possible, but you'll have the same issue with a PCI graphics card, as you do with an AGP card. Size and available space within the box.
You'll probably find that the space for the AGP slot is longer than that available to the PCI slots though.

Best thing to do is to actually check what space is available inside the box, and then campare it the dimensions of various cards, both PCI and AGP, find what'll fit and then decide which would be the best card to go with.

I thought all new cards where PCI and that AGP was old skool.

PCI is the original spec.
AGP then replaced PCI for graphics cards.
Then PCI-E came along.

Quote from need :

It's possible, but you'll have the same issue with a PCI graphics card, as you do with an AGP card. Size and available space within the box.
You'll probably find that the space for the AGP slot is longer than that available to the PCI slots though.

Best thing to do is to actually check what space is available inside the box, and then campare it the dimensions of various cards, both PCI and AGP, find what'll fit and then decide which would be the best card to go with.

Thats the thing, it is a Small form factor case, meaning that the height of the case laying down is barely 3 inches high, and as the original card is mounted from top to bottom, a new regular sized card will not fit in as although the slots on the mobo line up, a card will be about 2 inches too tall for the case, but the expansion slots and blanks are mounted accross the case and are full regular card size.

Quote from need :

PCI is the original spec.
AGP then replaced PCI for graphics cards.
Then PCI-E came along.

Whoops. I forgot about the -e part. I fail!

Right then, now i know i went wrong with my pci assumption, does anybody know of any decent sff agp cards anywhere, as the biggest i can find is 64mb, which is hilariously small, and will not cope with LFS at all well.

I can get an ASUS Radeon 3450 256 MB sff AGP card for about $60, or about 30-40 of your pounds.

I will have to hang on until the end of the month if thats ok, as i have just had all my electric and gas bills to pay. but i am highly interested in that card, as i plan to go round to his when he is out, install a better card, together with some spare ram i have, and then wait for him to discover that his fps has gone up and his whole PC is quicker!

Any idea what the postage to the UK would be for that??

I have no idea what the postage would be, it might not be worth it to ship it from here though as shipping might cost as much as the card itself lol. You can't find that card in the UK? Have you tried ebay?

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Any idea what the postage to the UK would be for that??

Take a look here.

I don't see it in a quick search on the big UK hardware sites, but a google search for " "radeon 3450" agp £ " found that link above as the first result.