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Black screen with svideo on AGP Nvidia card

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First post, by Cursed Derp

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Heyyyo,
In the video forum I have recently discussed an AGP Nvidia card that I picked up from a thrift store. I bought it thinking it was an FX 5200 and a few of you offered some speculation on what the card was. The final verdict was that it was either an FX card or some type of Quadro. The only way to know was to find out, so I purchased an Svideo cable from Amazon (sorry for the long link:

https://www.amazon.com/Traovien-Connector-Cam … yY2hfYXRm&psc=1

I installed the card in my pc today. It took a while as the card's bracket appears to be somewhat bent:

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The bent bracket near the svideo port
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The bend is very close to the svideo port:

20250108_200207.jpg
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Svideo port
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It took a lot of work to get it into the agp slot because the bracket was bent enough to make it difficult to insert.
I attached the svideo cable to the card and the monitor:

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Svideo connection to the monitor
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I switched to the svideo input and turned on the pc after this and was greeted by the usual flashing dash, although it appeared to be more blurry and in worse definition than with the usual vga output:

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Flashing dash, blurry frame, and darker area where the signal appears to be displaying the image
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There appears to be a blurry frame around the actual output.

The dash disappears after a few seconds and after that the screen just goes black except for the blurry frame around the image. The pc sounds correct and the hard drive (I think) and the fan are running consistently. Everything is at a lull and no extra sounds happen. I don't think the usual boot menu comes up or anything. The hard drive doesn't get louder.

Is my card bad? Is this a known problem? I haven't used svideo before so I'm very inexperienced with this type of output.

If anyone has any advice or information, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you

I am as smooth as a gravy train with flaming biscuit wheels.

Reply 1 of 7, by Cursed Derp

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Here's a picture of the card inserted in the agp slot:

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I am as smooth as a gravy train with flaming biscuit wheels.

Reply 3 of 7, by darry

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Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-10, 15:46:

My card is just screwed I guess?

What is that video card in the end ?
Does it work over VGA or DVI ?
Are you botting to DOS or Windows ?
Do you have Windows drivers already installed if booting into Windows?

S-VIDEO or composite output was not meant to be used as a primary output on 1990s and newer PC video cards, so Windows drivers do not typically enable it by default. You need to access the Nvidia control panel to enable it . I do not recall if you can auto-enable it at Windows boot (if that's what you want).

Reply 4 of 7, by Cursed Derp

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darry wrote on 2025-01-10, 22:09:
What is that video card in the end ? Does it work over VGA or DVI ? Are you botting to DOS or Windows ? Do you have Windows driv […]
Show full quote
Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-10, 15:46:

My card is just screwed I guess?

What is that video card in the end ?
Does it work over VGA or DVI ?
Are you botting to DOS or Windows ?
Do you have Windows drivers already installed if booting into Windows?

S-VIDEO or composite output was not meant to be used as a primary output on 1990s and newer PC video cards, so Windows drivers do not typically enable it by default. You need to access the Nvidia control panel to enable it . I do not recall if you can auto-enable it at Windows boot (if that's what you want).

Thanks for the response! I didn't know svideo wasn't common in the 90s. I'll run the pc with the old tnt 2 m64 card and try to enable svideo output. Then I'll run it with the new card and see what happens.
Also I took a break from vintage pc gaming so I forgot about uninstalling the previous drivers 🙁
I was just focusing on getting the pc to boot with the new card.
If I can't effectively enable svideo I'll get an svideo to vga adapter and see if the card works at all.
Then I'll go from there.
Once again thank you for your informative reply.
If anyone has any further information, it will be appreciated and taken into account, but for now I have all the information I need to find out the next step of making this card work as it should.

Thanks

I am as smooth as a gravy train with flaming biscuit wheels.

Reply 5 of 7, by darry

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Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-10, 22:30:
Thanks for the response! I didn't know svideo wasn't common in the 90s. I'll run the pc with the old tnt 2 m64 card and try to e […]
Show full quote
darry wrote on 2025-01-10, 22:09:
What is that video card in the end ? Does it work over VGA or DVI ? Are you botting to DOS or Windows ? Do you have Windows driv […]
Show full quote
Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-10, 15:46:

My card is just screwed I guess?

What is that video card in the end ?
Does it work over VGA or DVI ?
Are you botting to DOS or Windows ?
Do you have Windows drivers already installed if booting into Windows?

S-VIDEO or composite output was not meant to be used as a primary output on 1990s and newer PC video cards, so Windows drivers do not typically enable it by default. You need to access the Nvidia control panel to enable it . I do not recall if you can auto-enable it at Windows boot (if that's what you want).

Thanks for the response! I didn't know svideo wasn't common in the 90s. I'll run the pc with the old tnt 2 m64 card and try to enable svideo output. Then I'll run it with the new card and see what happens.
Also I took a break from vintage pc gaming so I forgot about uninstalling the previous drivers 🙁
I was just focusing on getting the pc to boot with the new card.
If I can't effectively enable svideo I'll get an svideo to vga adapter and see if the card works at all.
Then I'll go from there.
Once again thank you for your informative reply.
If anyone has any further information, it will be appreciated and taken into account, but for now I have all the information I need to find out the next step of making this card work as it should.

Thanks

That card is very likely one of these https://www.amazon.com/nVidia-Geforce-8xAGP-V … 0/dp/B0045JPIAO based on the photo fragments you shared.

That would make it an a Geforce 4 MX440 and would mean the non S-VIDEO port is DVI-I AND that you can connect one of these to it https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Converter-Conn … r/dp/B09MZD7K36 to use it with a VGA monitor.

Those links are just examples, not endorsements.

EDIT: Here is another photo of that card Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Reply 6 of 7, by Cursed Derp

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Damn that's the exact card which means that I can't use it in my pc as I don't have an agp 8x slot, just a 4x. Thank you for your informative and helpful reply and information. Is there any way to upgrade my agp slot?

I am as smooth as a gravy train with flaming biscuit wheels.

Reply 7 of 7, by darry

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Cursed Derp wrote on 2025-01-11, 13:12:

Damn that's the exact card which means that I can't use it in my pc as I don't have an agp 8x slot, just a 4x. Thank you for your informative and helpful reply and information. Is there any way to upgrade my agp slot?

That assertion is almost certainly incorrect. The card should be compatible with all 4x motherboards, if it is an AGP 3.0 8x card, which all MX440 8x cards are, AFAIK.

https://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

EDIT: Corrected obvious typo.

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