First post, by duga3
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Hello there! 😀
Has anyone here ever attempted to build a WinXP system with multiple graphics cards at once?
Right now I am focusing on Windows XP, games from cca 1998-2007, where I dont expect 100% compatibility near the lower end of this timeframe but you probably know what I mean (HL, SS2, etc). Glide is not really needed, only if there would be one extra spare PCI slot that would otherwise be unused. I would rather use Glide on Win98 system with A3D than run it on WinXP with hacked drivers. But - I would also like to hear any ideas about other systems in the same spirit, especially the Win98 as mentioned, which I plan on tackling in the future, probably in the same fashion if possible. So dont hold back please.
The main motivation for this type of build: Newer GPUs are not compatible with some older games (glitch or doesnt work at all) and instead of building multiple PCs (space issue), I would like to utilize 1 PC with multiple graphics cards and multibooting or something like that.
The XP build must have both PCI and PCIe slots to allow for older and newer (gtx960) cards and something in between (so the motherboard has to have a lot of these slots). I have yet to look into the early PCI/PCIe cards so maybe it could be PCIe only if there will be some reasonable PCIe variants of the older cards. I do not expect that there is a board that would have all AGP, PCI and PCIe so I wont even ask.
The current problem I am having: I have now tried 2 different (PCI-e for now) cards in one system (nForce 700) and realized that even when only one card is in use, the other one is still powered and has the fan spinning. So I have removed the power connector to the card and it is still spinning so the fan is powered directly from the bus, sigh. It makes total sense now but being always a solo card user this important detail didnt really occur to me until I have actually tried it. There is no option to turn it off in my BIOS either. In my limited knowledge, I dont know how to solve this or work around it. I would not bear to listen to multiple old graphics cards fans at the same time, I hope you can relate. Would anyone here have any ideas for this please?
Thank you in advance for any input, relating to the current problem or this type of build in general, any ideas are appreciated.