AMD Radeon HD 4650 freezes; buying a new Graphics Card?

[Thomsterdam]

Hi there,
At times, usually when I am playing a video on my desktop pc, the pc freezes: the screen turns black, comes back to life, but I cannot move mouse or use keyboard to do anything. So I need to do a hard reboot. It's my impression that it is the video card that is at fault: it is an (old) AMD Radeon HD 4650 and I find info that AMD graphics cards don't work well with Linux.

Is there anything I can do to improve things? Is this a AMD problem that won't go away? Or might it have a totally different cause?
If I can't change things, I would like any advice on buying a new graphics card. Which ones are fully Linux Mint 18.3 compatible on a reasonable budget (€100 or €150 max (USD 120-USD 180 max))?

FYI: I use the dual boot (Linux 18/Windows 7) pc for work on the internet (web design/development), with graphical editing programs, I use VirtualBox for a Windows 7 machine to run PhotoShop and other Adobe programs like Adobe InDesign, etc.

Thanx,

Thom

System:
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Cinnamon 3.6.6
Linux system: 4.4.0-116 generic
Processor Intel Core i7 CPY 920 @2.67GHz x 4
Memory: 9.8 GiB
Hard drive: 3939.4 GB
Graphics: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV730 PRO [Radeon HD 4650] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2 x 24 inch screens.

[deepakdeshp]

THis is a database of Linux Mint compatible machines. You could select the machine and check the graphics card and its cost in that machine
https://community.linuxmint.com/hardware/

[Hoser Rob]

The AMD 4650 is a 10 year old card and isn't the best for Cinnamon. It's also a legacy card and so there are no Linux drivers available except the open source one you';d be using. Copy/paste this to the termnal and copy/paste the text output here for better system info though:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

Your kernel version may be a little old in general, though newer kernels don't generally fix old hardware issues you should follow the steps for 18.3 in the first post here:

viewtopic.php?f=90&p=1412167#p1412167

If you can get a new graphics card that'd be a lot better than a legacy AMD card. A cheap Nvidia card would be best. One of those discount chains that have last year's model is ideal because Linux support is slower for new hardware.