My dell 2300...

[huked0nfonicks]

Ok, so I have a Dell 2300 which I think is about 6 years old now, not much of a high tech gaming computer. I have 384 MB ram installed, which I'll upgrade. I just bought an ATI 9250, and after failing to find the proper slot for it gave up and assummed I needed a specialized video card, so I returned the ATI 9250. It was only then that I thought I should chekc online, and then I found out I needed to unscrew a plate next to the open slot. ANYWAYS, my main question is, with this new video card will I be able to play my games? Currently, I own The Sims 2 and many steam games. I play Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, and any mods for those two. My computer as is runs those games OK, not great though. I want to upgrade to the HL2 engine, with games like Day of Defeat Source, Counter Strike Source, and the mods for those games. Will my computer with this video card run these games (also Sims 2)?

 

[raybay]

You are really asking for trouble trying to run games on the Dell 2300 budget home machine... it has a frail motherboard and power supply... and when you change out parts, the failure rate goes way up. CPU fan, CPU mounts, motherboard, and power supply are all negatively impacted on that computer...

 

[tifc8lraz]

Check out the power supply section of my guide here and look at step 3. If you don't have the proper power amount, you can have some trouble which may include, but are not limited to:

1. Blue Screens (of Death)
2. Random Restarts

 

[Surkitz]

most of where i see the trouble starting is with the ram and as you suggested upgrading the ram will help alot for you. you dont have enough to run any of those games at decent playable frame rates at the current setup. just make sure you find ram compatible with that mobo. you wont have much room to bring enough wow factor for that system so dont expect it to fly when you do upgrade as the costs may outweigh the returns. if you're on a budget i can understand of course. it took me a long time just to upgrade my graphics and ram as they were $$$ and im still in agp land + single core.

 

[huked0nfonicks]

wow I never knew the issues with the power supply I'll definatley look into that.

I think I'll still tyr it because all my files are already backed up on a second drive and restarting windows is a hastle but not a big issue right now.

I really need someone, maybe it'll come along later, to tell me if it will run my games. I have an old Gateway (dont know the model #) that's even older than this one. It has some spazzy video card in it and 512 RAM, which is plenty. It's major drawback is its CPU, which is limited to 1GHz. Motherboards cost a lot, so I was hoping that a quick fix of my Dell wiht a video card and memory will provide me with an upgrade over my old, used Gateway.

 

[vnf4ultra]

You could check out the link in my signature.
I have a dell 2300 which I put a pci nvidia 6200 card in.
If you want to game with an older computer like that then consider getting a pci 6200 or a pci x1300 card, they're about the best you'll find. If you have a celeron processor and/or less than 512mb ram though, it probably wouldn't be worth putting money into a graphics card(it'd be better to save that towards a new tower.)

 

[huked0nfonicks]

You could check out the link in my signature.
I have a dell 2300 which I put a pci nvidia 6200 card in.
If you want to game with an older computer like that then consider getting a pci 6200 or a pci x1300 card, they're about the best you'll find. If you have a celeron processor and/or less than 512mb ram though, it probably wouldn't be worth putting money into a graphics card(it'd be better to save that towards a new tower.)

luckily i dont have a celeron which is why i though it might be ok to invest in it a little. I'll buy memory and look into that video card. thanks for the help. oh, and with that video card will i need to swap out the power supply