Asking for Assistance on Upgrading

M

Magus

Geek Trainee
Hi there all. Not an expert so I could use some helpful advise from you guys. I have a Dell Dimension 8300 (about 3 years old) & a couple of yaers ago installed a Radeon 9800XT 256MB Graphics card. All was well till I started getting screens with gargelled graphics then strange things would happen requiring me to refresh the screen every now & again. But now the situation has deteriorated & the screen goes into standby & never to turn back on unless I manually switch off the pc & boot up again (the fan on the card is also whinning as of this morning). I have gone through all the help files of installing drivers, rolling back drivers, updating BIOS but it is still persisting & the final verdict was That I need a new graphics card.

So do I get a new grahics card or does anyone know how this issue can be fixed. If the former could anyone advise me what would be the best card to get considering I have a max budget of £200 but don't want anything with less performance than my 9800XT (I would also prefer ATi). My pc is a Dell P4 2.4 with 2.5GB RAM.

Thank you in advance.
 
1) The system would turn on but nothing would show up on the screen?
2) The computer is 3 years old and it is a Dell?

I am not an expert but the signs are pointing towards the Psu. Since u installed the 9800 256mb and the system wasn't designed for it, I think the Psu is dying out,..
Lets see what the other guys have to say about it,..
 
One way of checking it out is by swaping your 9800 256mb with an older Graphics card (which does not have a power connector) and try if the system works or not.
 
Well you could get an X800GT or something then with the extra cash get a better PSU. The thing with Dells is the components are usually of a different design and fittings/moutings are in different places, this can make upgrading a right pain the the :swear:

A Tagan 480W PSU (the same as mine) can be found here and will set you back £56.34 inc. VAT meaning you'll have £143.66 left for the graphics card, alternatively you could get the 420W unit and leave yourself £156.58 for the graphics card.

From OcUK you can get a PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) for £152.69 Including VAT. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/X800_Series.html

Or you can go with a 6600GT also from OcUK http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/6600AGP_Series.html these range from about £100 to £140 (roughly)

(on there the 480W PSU is £58 I think so you'll be a little over budget if you go with the ATi card but you could stay under budget if you go with the nVidia card, the ATi card is better though, you'll also have to think about delivery on top of that as well)
 
Good advice guys:)
Here's the real killer though, ugrading your gfx card won't be a problem but actually getting that new power supply in may be a bit of an issue. I'm not a Dell guru by any means but I do know they use quite a few propriotary standards when it comes to motherboards and therefore cases. So it may not be that any old power supply you buy will pop right in.
I could very well be wrong here too but just keep that in mind. As for your graphics card you're obviously looking for AGP so I'd say try for an X800Pro, X800GTO, or nVidia 6800GS if that falls within your bounds. The X850 line even better than the X800Pro or GTO naturally but I don't know how the prices fall in Europe for the AGP models.
Hopefully someone will dinnounce my PSU concerns but just don't want you spending money for no reason.
 
Sorry, I forgot about the Dell Psu's. Heard that they have some different kinds of Molex connectors,..
 
Thank you all so much, so I guess first step is borrow an older graphics card from somewhere & check the results. I am following X800 GT & Pro on ebay see if I can pick something up between the 100-150 mark & then may just check with Dell & get a more powerful PSU reagrdless.

Again much appreciated for the advice...God Bless
 
Yeah companies like that often use different mountings and also switch around the power connector pins on the motherboard, this can mean that to get a different PSU to work you'd have to find out what pins they've switched and then switch them on your motherboard power connector.
 
Dell is the only company that's known to do this in recent history. Fifteen years ago, yes, I could see this being a different story, but HP, Compaq, IBM...they haven't had a reputation for doing this, whereas Dell has, although I've heard a few things that point to Dell changing this policy.
 
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