New Graphics Card!

Hey everyone, I took the plunge and bought a new Graphics Card from www.komplett.ie, it's a GeForce 7600 GS, with 256MB RAM and stuff. Cost 161 including postage - arrived 3 days after ordering, so was dead chuffed with that.

For you tech heads out there that might be wondering about how to add a graphics card - here's the easy way I did it. Note that my motherboard had onboard graphics in the shape of the ATI XPress 200 system, so that is obsolescentified by this new job. Anyone who's interested, the setup is a Compaq Presario SR1619.

So, first things first - open the package. Admire the electronics that you know are going to enhance Lara Croft's appearance (ahem) so well. Check you have the driver disk and any adapters for your monitor cable (I had a moment yesterday when I was reminded that it's a dual DVI output - I have a VGA monitor, but an adapter is included thankfully!).

Next I uninstalled anything to do with ATI from the add/remove programme menu in Control Panel. That felt a little brave, but the puter still worked (albeit in a low resolution) so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Nextly I disabled the ATI Xpress 200 from the Display --> Advanced menu. Crossed my fingers and restarted. Et voila, everything seemed to work fine after the reboot, and XP was detecting the Xpress 200 component - needless to say this was ignored.

So, turn off the 'puter and remove all cables. Transfer 'puter to workbed. Touch Radiator, or use one of them wristbands. Remove the side panel by removing the screw fastener next to the fan at the back, and sliding off. Then, remove the expansion port cover retaining clip, again that's just a simple screw and slide affair. Take off the cover next to the PCI-Express port (the brown one). Slip in the graphics card - firmly but gently.

Replace expansion port cover retaining clip, and side panel. Cross fingers. Transfer 'puter to operating location, and reconnect connections. Cross fingers. Press the on button. Cross fingers.

Breathe sigh of relief!

Fix resolution. Load up Tomb Raider Legends. Ogle, and be impressed at the fantastic scenery.

The game runs much smoother even at high graphics settings than it did yesterday with the Xpress 200 onboard graphics. So I'm glad I bought it. Easy to buy from Komplett, easy to install, easy to install! I have some pictures of the install, but I'm too lazy to load them up.

Please make sure you read my previous post in relation to bikes and isohels!