Uber Geeky!

I’m currently trying to find a fanless AGP video card with dual monitor support for Ubuntu. My existing one is a bit temperamental and I’ve never been able to get dual monitors working properly with Ubuntu. Looks like it’s got to be either ATI or nVidia. I’ve always owned nVidia cards in the past and I’ve been reasonably happy with them, although there do seem to be some minor annoyances when using Compiz, and since the drivers are all closed source, long term support isn’t highly likely. The other problem is that nVidia don’t make AGP anymore so I have to find a supplier with some old stock or check out eBay if worse comes to worse.

Just about all the old ATI cards appear to have fans. I really don’t want a fan because they tend to break or get really noisy, particularly in the rather humid climate where I live. The Matrox cards look like exactly what I want, slow and reliable, but I don’t really trust their Linux support.

After a bit of searching looks like there are still a few vendors stocking generic models with vNidia GeForce 5xxx-6xxx chipsets and no fans. As for the ATI, looks like I can probably get the Radeon 9600 Pro, then try to clock it down so I can unplug the fan. I haven’t had any luck finding too many fanless ATI cards, which is a shame because they will have better Linux support in the long term thanks to their open source drivers.

This is for my home workstation, it’s only got about a year left in it before I seriously consider getting a new one. After that however I intend to use it as a home server. It’s got masses of RAM and other decent components, but like the AGP bus, all now obsolete. I can’t reuse anything other than maybe a couple of it’s SATA hard drives. I’ll probably replace the PSU and fans to quieten it down a little and boost it’s life span, then put CentOS on it just for something different.

Just a cheap video card is all I’m looking for. I’d like something that’s going to last a few years at least. I’m not sure if the motherboard will boot without a video card, I’ll have to check that out. Need to do a little more research. Perhaps I’ll get adventurous and go with the Radeon clocking option.