Time to upgrade - ATI All in wonder (hardware failing due to old age)

[Altairst8te74]

Bit of a long story but I need some advice and help please.

I have been a very happy user of n ATI 9600 All in wonder card. So old it is AGP based. I was so happy with the results I bought a bunch of them up before ati sold off to AMD. Canada used to sell them direct to end customers. I somehow managed to find this sweetspot set of ati drivers that worked and never ever failed! they are rock solid and you can record for hours (been a few times I forgot the machine was recording and ended up with huge mpeg files lol)

I would always have one connected to a satellite box via composite out, then record at 720x576, 25fps, 48000kbs audio.

Rcordings were always set to mpeg2. I would then edit the recordings with WombleVCR. I could even upscale video, had some amazing results over the years!

Nothing else seemed to touch or beat it! I tried lots of different methods, was never happy with any one of them apart from this ati card.

But as time marches on, computers started to fail/die, the cards began going down one by one! I am pretty much left with a couple cards and some ratty old computers on their last legs as spares. I stopped all the recording back in 2019 and still have a bunch of stuff left on an old humax hdr recorder, I want to at least record that lot and be done if that is the end of it!

I really want to attempt to build a modern small footprint computer that can at least record the same way as the ati did! I just do not know where to start...

I also want it to be able to record off old vhs tapes.

Has anyone got any advice?

Thanks

[DB83]

Your solution is in your post.

If you want to build you must :-


1. Find a mainboard that supports AGP (I forget just how many years ago I failed to find one as new and I was, theoretically, in the same position as you). So you have to find a mb in a used PC from someone who tries to get a few pennies from a redundant system. I am sure that Fleabay (Ebay) is full of them not that the typical seller has a clue what their system is made from.


2. Use an OS that supports such legacy hardware and the manuf has the drivers still available. My guess, from experience, is that we are talking WinXP and not beyond.

[Altairst8te74]

Sorry if I was not very detailed on my post! I am re-learning all sorts regarding this stuff. Many years ago I had all this down to an art, but it has been many years since then.

Years ago I created an xp sp2 backup/restore cd image, I could restore a pc with one of the all in wonders in it, would have it up and running within 5 minutes and be recording again like nothing happened. I forgot what I had used, some sort of partition manager... I do have everything archived away just need to find it all it is stashed away.

Googling has helped me locate a large archive of ati all in wonder stuff which is a great help. My original 9600 all in wonder card has a problem with a persistent wdm code 10 error. If I swap that card out with another identical 9600 all in wonder, the wdm issue clears and it works? That is what I cannot suss out? The other faulty 9600 all in wonders appear to need repair of some kind, no idea where to start with that!

Also I am going to be forced to have motherboards re-capped by the looks of it. I have stored all of the failed ones away, I have one board in particular that was very good when new! I know motherboards can be recapped, but can ati videocards be repaired at all?

[johns0]

Maybe look for a pci-e to agp adapter and older motherboard that can be sold.