Ive seen loads of people having problems with newly installed graphics cards so here is some advice.
Before you go out and purchace your new graphics card its worth finding out what your motherboard will take. PCI graphics cards are all easy to figure out, but if you have an AGP (accelerated graphics port) then you need to know what apature speed your motherboard will support. To find this out, first look in the book that came with your motherboard, it will tell you if you require agp x2/x4 or agp x4/x8. Second, contact your motherboard manufacutrer and ask them. Thirdly, if you know how to do it then go in to your bios and look at "agp apature". Fourthly, there are some programs that will help you to identify your agp speed, i dont have any links for them but im sure someone on here will post some.
Once you have purchased your new graphics card and BEFORE you fit it, remove the driver and any applications that were for your old card. This is very important as a lot of problems arise from XP getting confused by mulitple drivers. XP supports multiple graphics cards (i know this for sure as ive had 2 cards running as an experiment) so it wont automatically remove the old driver for you.
For your own sake, be careful of static electricity when you handle your new graphics card, it wont damage it right away but it will reduce the life span of the components on it. I work in the electronics trade and ive seen what static electricity can do to components and it can be expensive to fix. A good idea is to grab hold of a bare, unpainted part of the chassis of your case for a few seconds which will discharge any static you may have built up.
Once your new card is fitted, install the newest drivers you can find for it and your motherboard chipset from their manufactures web site.
This is obviously general advice so if you are still not sure about your specific graphics card RTFM (it means read the manual, i will leave you to figure out what the F stands for).
Finally, happy game playing with your new graphics card. Rik.
Before you go out and purchace your new graphics card its worth finding out what your motherboard will take. PCI graphics cards are all easy to figure out, but if you have an AGP (accelerated graphics port) then you need to know what apature speed your motherboard will support. To find this out, first look in the book that came with your motherboard, it will tell you if you require agp x2/x4 or agp x4/x8. Second, contact your motherboard manufacutrer and ask them. Thirdly, if you know how to do it then go in to your bios and look at "agp apature". Fourthly, there are some programs that will help you to identify your agp speed, i dont have any links for them but im sure someone on here will post some.
Once you have purchased your new graphics card and BEFORE you fit it, remove the driver and any applications that were for your old card. This is very important as a lot of problems arise from XP getting confused by mulitple drivers. XP supports multiple graphics cards (i know this for sure as ive had 2 cards running as an experiment) so it wont automatically remove the old driver for you.
For your own sake, be careful of static electricity when you handle your new graphics card, it wont damage it right away but it will reduce the life span of the components on it. I work in the electronics trade and ive seen what static electricity can do to components and it can be expensive to fix. A good idea is to grab hold of a bare, unpainted part of the chassis of your case for a few seconds which will discharge any static you may have built up.
Once your new card is fitted, install the newest drivers you can find for it and your motherboard chipset from their manufactures web site.
This is obviously general advice so if you are still not sure about your specific graphics card RTFM (it means read the manual, i will leave you to figure out what the F stands for).
Finally, happy game playing with your new graphics card. Rik.