[Andyjohnson]

So i bought a dell e310 to use just as a regular pc but then decided to do a bit of gaming, but then i realized that the video card in it is horrible, i could barly run star wars kotor, let alone oblivion. so heres where the main problem begins, i took a look inside and found that it has an integraded video card- doh. so heres my question: if i put a new video card in the pci port, would they become corrupted and if they did then would i just have to strait up reformat my compy and only install the new video card?

Edited by Andyjohnson, 17 June 2006 - 01:39 AM.

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Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. You can install a video card in a pci slot. A simple search on dogpile found this at cnet: The bad: FireWire ports aren't standard; system lacks graphics-card expansion slot.
But you can find PCI video cards (not PCI-E!!). They are easy to install, just plug and play like any other pci card. Should you decide to do this, you will have to access your bios and disable on board graphics. Mind you, I am not saying you won't experience problems but it can be done.

Edited by austin_o, 17 June 2006 - 09:43 AM.

[austin_o]

Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. You can install a video card in a pci slot. A simple search on dogpile found this at cnet: The bad: FireWire ports aren't standard; system lacks graphics-card expansion slot.
But you can find PCI video cards (not PCI-E!!). They are easy to install, just plug and play like any other pci card. Should you decide to do this, you will have to access your bios and disable on board graphics. Mind you, I am not saying you won't experience problems but it can be done.

Edited by austin_o, 17 June 2006 - 09:43 AM.

[Andyjohnson]

Ok, so how do i get into my bios and disable the first video card?

[rumble291]

its normally F2 or F10 when you boot up it should say the button to enter in to setup. the find on-board video and disable it.

[Andyjohnson]

Ok, so which video card does anyone recomend for playing oblivion or any game because i found one at a very good price here:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102651

if someone could tell me what they think, that'd be great. Thanks for all the help this far.

[rumble291]

you cant have that its a PCI-E you only have PCI which means you wont be able to get a very good graphics card. The only cards you can get are Nvidias Geforce 5200 or 5500 and ATIs Radeon 9250. these wont play demanding games like oblivion but will play less demanding like CS 1.6 and source, Battlefield 1942/vietnam at around 30-40fps. The only way you will be able to play demanding games is by upgrading your motherboard which most probably means upgrading your CPU aswell.

[Gamerlicious]

On my current PC and my old PC I installed a new video card. Both had onboard video before. I didn't disable either of them in the BIOS. All you really need to do is install the card and download drivers.

[Tru Techie]

dells are known to be racist systems, meaning upgrading them will put u in the mad house. i dont think you need to go into bios, but then again considering this is windows its bound to not work properly, anywayz if u dont wanna go to bios then go to Start>Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>Display adapter>click on video card> then use the video card u put in. if that doesnt work then go to bios and change from there.