Help with Graphics Card

[JIP]

The best thing to do to get a profile of your machine so some of the tech heads can help you would be to go to a site called "Belarc Advisor". Belarc will do a full scan of your system and show among other things the type of motherboard you have. You need to know what kind of slots you have for a graphics card like PCI-E or whatever. You also need to know the specs of the rest of your system to see if it is even capable to keep up with a better graphics card. Upgrding older machines is tough to do if you get too many generations removed from the current hadware. You might run into a situation where you have a pci-express slot that can take something like an Nvidia 9800 that would have your outputs but your power supply might not be able to handle it. Again the first step to any upgrde would be a scan just Google "Belarc Advisor".

 

[Jedo_03]

Hi JIP
went to Belarc as you advised (thanks) and got a profile
System model:
[FONT=&quot]Acer Aspire SA60 R01-B1S1
System Serial Number: 53702198
Enclosure Type: Desktop[/FONT]
OS:
[FONT=&quot]Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)[/FONT]
Processor:
[FONT=&quot]2.93 gigahertz Intel Celeron
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded[/FONT]
Main circuit board:
[FONT=&quot]Board: Acer F661GX R01-B1S1
Serial Number: 04E253400185
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 07/27/2005
Drives:
[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]75.81 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
29.50 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8520B [CD-ROM drive]
Generic USB CF Reader USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 2
Generic USB MS Reader USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 4
Generic USB SD Reader USB Device [Hard drive] (1.97 GB) -- drive 1
Generic USB SM Reader USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 3
ST380011A [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 4JV5ED3Z, rev 8.01, SMART Status: Healthy[/FONT]
Memory modules:
[FONT=&quot]480 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'A0' has 512 MB
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' is Empty[/FONT]
Controllers:
[FONT=&quot]Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
SiS PCI IDE Controller[/FONT]
Display:
[FONT=&quot]SiS 661FX/GX Mirage Graphics [Display adapter]
Acer AC711 [Monitor] (16.3"vis, s/n ES71102048, August 2005)[/FONT]
Bus Adaptors:
[FONT=&quot]SiS 661FX/GX Mirage Graphics [Display adapter]
Acer AC711 [Monitor] (16.3"vis, s/n ES71102048, August 2005)[/FONT]
... then goes on to detail all the software/licences etc etc
DOES ANY OF THIS HELP...?
Jedo

 

[itznfb]

this will work fine:
Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-62AAH2N-HSL GeForce 6200 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

 

[boogschd]

Oh gee yea. Got it a bit wrapped round my head.(man i really need a day off work). Pcie is the replacement for agp yea ? And the pci slots are for other stuff noy graphics cards yea ?

yeap

pcie replaced the agp for graphics

 

[Jedo_03]

this will work fine:
Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-62AAH2N-HSL GeForce 6200 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Hi - and thanks
I went to the site - apparently only available to USA addresses...
NVM - found same on ebay GF6200(128MB) AGP 3.0 card - and listed the available resolutions which included all the 16:9
I'm not fussed about 512/256/128 as I don't run any fancy graphics apps - and everything I run is running on my current 32MB card anyway...
Thank you
Jedo

 

[Jedo_03]

Oh gee yea. Got it a bit wrapped round my head.(man i really need a day off work). Pcie is the replacement for agp yea ? And the pci slots are for other stuff noy graphics cards yea ?

yeap

pcie replaced the agp for graphics

Yes - this is true...
and AGP cards don't fit into PCIE slots and vice versa...
GE6200 AGP 3.0 is an AGP card which supports 16:9 which is all I wanted.
Thanks
Jedo

 

[Jedo_03]

So what's the go when the new card comes...?

See att pic...
I take this to be the AGP slot where the new card goes..????? Is it...??

So do I have to remove any cards/hardware...???
Or do I just plug the new card into the empty slot...???
And then what..??
How do I "activate" the new card/software..???
(I'm okay at the mouse/keyboard end - it's inside the box baffles me...)
Thanks for continuing help...
Jedo

 

[JIP]

Adding a new vid card is not an extremely difficult thing to do. All you need to do is find the right slot and power cord on your power supply and follow directions. There will also generally be a disk that is needed to install. One thing you need to make sure of is discharging any static that might be on your body before you ever touch this part or stick your hands inside your computer. The easy way to do this is to grab ahold of a metal part of your case to ground yourself before you touch anything. A more effective way would be to buy an anti-static wrist strap. This is a strap you velcro around your wrist and it clips to your case to discharge any static. The one of these I recently purchased was $6.99 which is a small price to pay to protect your computer.

 

[boogschd]

Adding a new vid card is not an extremely difficult thing to do. All you need to do is find the right slot and power cord on your power supply and follow directions. There will also generally be a disk that is needed to install. One thing you need to make sure of is discharging any static that might be on your body before you ever touch this part or stick your hands inside your computer. The easy way to do this is to grab ahold of a metal part of your case to ground yourself before you touch anything. A more effective way would be to buy an anti-static wrist strap. This is a strap you velcro around your wrist and it clips to your case to discharge any static. The one of these I recently purchased was $6.99 which is a small price to pay to protect your computer.

text in bold will do... no need for an anti-static bracelet thingy
best to hold just the metal bracket of the card when handling it

remember to unplug everything first (power) so that you wont get shocked.. then its a simple process of inserting it in the agp slot. then installing the drivers supplied

if you dont get an installation cd or its broken for some reason

you could always download from the site

 

[clarinetJWD]

Also, for some reason, I have found installing AGP cards to be a bit power-particular on some motherboards. Make sure to disconnect the power supply from the board before installing the card, and reconnect it after.

I don't know for sure that that's what caused my toasty motherboard, but it's the only thing I could narrow it down to. See the pic below for what it looks like.

EDIT: It's always better to install drivers from the manufacturer's site rather than use the included CD, because 99% of the time, the CD is out of date.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_190.62_whql.html