Installing a Video Card

Smilingoat

im trying to install a video card in my mothers computer, everything seems to be going ok (im on it now, but i think its still using the on board video card and not the new video card, how to i switch it to the new video card? the instructions that came with the card (a radeon 9250) say to read the manual from the computer, the dell manual says to check the manual that comes with the card. wtf?

thanks in advance.

pacbowl

You probably have to boot into the bios, disable the onboard video and change the startup sequence to use the pci or agp video card. Where you go in the bios to do this depends on the bios. Each manufacturer does it a bit differently.

Smilingoat

shit. ive reached my advanced edges of computer assembly knowledge :P

Smilingoat

yeah, this is shitty, on start up i get a message saying that there are not ATI drivers, which ive tried to install, but i need som .NET whatever from microsoft, which failed to install when i downloaded it. this is a huge pain in the ass, this is always the hard part, all i want is the drivers to install. thats it.

pacbowl

Smilingoat wrote: »

shit. ive reached my advanced edges of computer assembly knowledge :P

Nah, if you know enough to crack the case open and seat a video card its fairly easy. You know what the bios is. Look for the "Press Delete to enter setup" or whatever key it is on your computer when you get the POST screen. Once in there it's safe to look around the menus. Look for something under the options that refer to onboard video. It will really be pretty self explanatory and close to that option should be something that refers to starting up using a pci/agp video card. You really cant break anything unless you start messing with cpu voltage and/or trying to overclock it.

If you need .net to install the ati catalyst drivers (sorry, nvidia user here) then they should be in the windows update under the optional software section on the menu to the left.

DrFrylock

ATI's drivers use the .NET framework for the ATI Control Center applet, which is a big resource hog anyway. There may be a way to install just the driverss. I'm not sure why .NET would fail to install though - was there an error message or something?

Smilingoat

yeah, i got it figured out though, about 1 min after the download was finished it said it had to restart my computer, then i could install it, then restart again to complete. then i come to find that ATI sent me to V1.1 and requires V2.0 i didnt even think to look for anything other than what the link sent me to.

at this point im just ready to toss the thing out the door. hardware was easy, and the RAM worked fine, no fuss. this Video card is a bitch though, its the first time ive had these problems, but its also the first time ive upgraded a PC that wasnt mine built from the bottom up.

Smilingoat

bwt im downloading .NET V2 now, after that i should be able to install the drivers, i did got into the bios and the options for video control (Which i assume is the video card) was "auto" and "onboard" it was already on auto, so im assuming i need to add the drivers first (which makes sense, but it was worth the look around, also got over my fear of looking around in the bios)

Smilingoat

ok, everything is good now, except the background of my desktop is now blue, with the regular picture behind it. im unsure of why.

squirly

You don't need to install drivers first to set the BIOS to use the 9250 first. Usually you don't set it to the specific card (Like, you won't see 9250 in the BIOS) but rather the slot it's in which I'm assuming is AGP. Though, if it's set to Auto it will most likely use the 9250 and it seems it's working okay now anyway.

I don't understand your last post too..

Smilingoat

when the computer loaded it had the proper background picture, a few mins in it carpeted the background with a solid blue, but when logging off the blue disappeared and the picture remained again... odd

anyway, i picked up an X1300 hoping it would work better, it looks like either way we wont be able to play this game, as i can start the game (sim city societies) and it lets me get into the settings (to turn them down) but every now and then the screen turns off, then back on, then i can use it for a second, then it happens again, samething use it again, then one last time, then it turns on to a black screen and the In game courser (a blue courser from the game) with a black background which never loads into anything.

when the screen turns off its the monitor actually turning off. so im guessing the graphics card is having problems keeping the game going and keeps semi=shutting down. bugger.