new video card and memory
cabelle:
I received some unexpected birthday money was thinking of upgrading my graphics card & increase my ram but I'm not very computer savvy. I have a Nvidia Geforce MX 4 "integrated" card with 64 mb ram (I think it's the 460) and 512 mb ram in my computer. I was considering the same card as Knitro (the Geforce 5500) and increase the ram to 1 gig. Currently I've been dealing with lack of the special event movies, "chunky" hands and 2 invites to parties. Would be nice to upgrade.
The question I have is should I buy the card & ram from Newegg and attempt to install it myself or purchase it from the Comp USA in my area? It would be somewhat cheaper from Newegg (about a $50 difference) but Comp USA will install hardware I purchase from them in my computer for free. I'm inclined to go the Comp USA route because I don't want to screw up my computer. What would you advise?
witch:
Cabelle, have you opened up your PC and changed any hardware before? Video cards are not difficult and there are tutorials online. Here's one for starters: Online tutorial.
Doing it yourself may invalidate a warranty, check it out. The main thing is to take your time and look carefully at how the old card is plugged in. Either use an anti-static strap or leave the power cord plugged in and the main power switch at the wall turned off. That will make sure the PC is grounded.
Make sure the new card is firmly seated all along the connecting plug, supporting the motherboard underneath if possible, try not to put your fingers on any circuitry, hold things by the edges if you can.
cabelle:
Thanks for the reply & the link to the tutorial. I've been too chicken to open up the PC for fear that I'll do something dumb, break it and freak. I should bite the bullet and at least see what's inside. The process seems pretty straightforward except I'm wondering if the "integrated" term in my Geforce MX 4 card means that it's one of those troublesome graphics cards that is integrated as part of the motherboard and not it's own card. Am I correct on that? I could be mistaken, this is uncharted territory for me. But I have heard that even the integrated cards can be disabled so I could probably learn how to do that too.
But thanks again for the input, tomorrow I'm going to take a look at the inside of the PC, read the tutorial you kindly linked and look for more info I might need. But I'll have to be patient first and help out in my daughter's class tomorrow morning. So I better get to bed for now, 20 "busy" 7 year olds can be quite taxing on the nerves even with a full nights sleep. I sure appreciate you helping this technologically challenged individual.
witch:
Cabelle, good on ya for having a look. That's all I did the first time. It might pay for you to open up the box and just check that you have an AGP slot if you have an older board with an integrated video card. My old motherboard didn't. Bissela, a poster on MikeInside forums did a really good google search on how to recognise different video slots, hang on I'll see if I can find a link...
Yup, here it is: Bissela's pics for video card slots Try the 10th post down, don't know how to link exactly.
Bissela is at Uni learning to be a computer assembler amongst other things & is very knowledgeable.
PS. There are heaps of tutorials, find one that seems easy to you, that one I linked to was just the very first one on the list.
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