[knighthawk]

I have a HP m7160n with a intergrated video card. can you swap out the card or install a new one? the current card will not let me run certain games. any help would be great. Thanks Knighthawk

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You can't 'swap it out' as such because it's not removable, but if the PC has an AGP slot (one brown slot at end of PCI slots, and further from backplate than PCI) you can fit a new AGP card in that and disable on-board graphics in the BIOS setup. (with some PCs this is done automatically when a new video card is detected). Why not a PCI card instead you may ask? --- well it's just that they are now very difficult to get hold of except for very low-end ones --- AGP has replaced PCI these days for graphics hardware (and even AGP is on it's way out, but that's another story), so that's what most retailers sell. You can still get a PCI graphics card by mail order or on the net if your PC doesn't have AGP slot (should have if less than 5 years old) but do make sure it's specs are higher than what you already have! One last point if you do fit a new card. Even though the old one has been disabled (either manually in the BIOS or automatically) you must still remove any drivers associated with the old one before installing drivers for the new one. failure to do this could cause a driver conflict which will cause Windows to complain in it's time-honoured fashion!

Edited by pip22, 17 November 2005 - 05:14 AM.

[pip22]

You can't 'swap it out' as such because it's not removable, but if the PC has an AGP slot (one brown slot at end of PCI slots, and further from backplate than PCI) you can fit a new AGP card in that and disable on-board graphics in the BIOS setup. (with some PCs this is done automatically when a new video card is detected). Why not a PCI card instead you may ask? --- well it's just that they are now very difficult to get hold of except for very low-end ones --- AGP has replaced PCI these days for graphics hardware (and even AGP is on it's way out, but that's another story), so that's what most retailers sell. You can still get a PCI graphics card by mail order or on the net if your PC doesn't have AGP slot (should have if less than 5 years old) but do make sure it's specs are higher than what you already have! One last point if you do fit a new card. Even though the old one has been disabled (either manually in the BIOS or automatically) you must still remove any drivers associated with the old one before installing drivers for the new one. failure to do this could cause a driver conflict which will cause Windows to complain in it's time-honoured fashion!

Edited by pip22, 17 November 2005 - 05:14 AM.