VOGONS


First post, by Totempole

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I received this Geforce 2 MX card in the mail yesterday, and was very disappointed to see that it was missing a contact on the AGP connector. Nevertheless, I decided to give the card a whirl, and it seems to be working okay. I then decided to try and find out the exact purpose of the missing contact, but didn't find anything useful. From what I could find, it looks like the missing contact could simply be cosmetic as there are numerous Geforce 2 cards which did not include that particular contact. So did I get lucky, or is the missing contact going to be an issue?

Pics:
The card in question:
kWz0b50.jpg
Closeup of damaged contact:
5WVmMUi.jpg

Other GF2 cards with the same contact omitted:
UwHBh9h.jpg
IMG_0056.JPG
geforce2mx.jpg
408536B6AFAB64A17C74199E5189D00E.jpg
GeForce2_GTS.png

So can I safely assume that the missing contact isn't required for this card? If I look closely at the PCB, the small piece of contact that still exists doesn't seem to be linked to anything, but I can't say for sure. I'm hoping I got lucky and the missing contact is purely cosmetic.

My Retro Gaming PC:
Pentium III 450MHz Katmai Slot 1
Transcend 256MB PC133
Gigabyte GA-6BXC
MSI Geforce 2 MX400 AGP
Ensoniq ES1371 PCI
Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA

Reply 4 of 6, by raymangold

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It looks like a grounding pin.

Often cards don't need all of the pins-- so PCB designers will use the unnecessary pins for grounding for the sake of grounding. Cheaper designs will just put nothing there 😉

Reply 5 of 6, by JaNoZ

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Check http://pinouts.ru/Slots/agp_pinout.shtml
It is pin B14 and is a reserved pin, in other words not even used, youre in luck.

Reply 6 of 6, by Totempole

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JaNoZ wrote:

Check http://pinouts.ru/Slots/agp_pinout.shtml
It is pin B14 and is a reserved pin, in other words not even used, youre in luck.

Glad to hear that. I've tested the card in both 2D and 3D games and it seems perfect.

My Retro Gaming PC:
Pentium III 450MHz Katmai Slot 1
Transcend 256MB PC133
Gigabyte GA-6BXC
MSI Geforce 2 MX400 AGP
Ensoniq ES1371 PCI
Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA