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[Lightningfalcon]

How do you check if a graphics card is compatible with a computer setup?

[foil]

How do you check if a graphics card is compatible with a computer setup?

Mostly 3 things.

Check the slot is compatible, agp, pci express etc etc..

You have a big enough power supply to power it, will be listed on a sticker on it.

Make sure it will fit in the case if getting a huge card or have a tiny case.

Also although it wont affect the thing working, its worth checking the card isnt overkill.  No point sticking a $700 card into a $50 2005 cpu computer or etc etc as a weak cpu would never be able to feed a huge card properly and will end up not being used to full potential.

[Sensei]

How do you check if a graphics card is compatible with a computer setup?

Almost all graphics cards use PCIe, which should be on your motherboard unless it's incredibly old or a specialized workstation motherboard. You'll also need to be sure you have enough power. It's pretty uncommon for a graphics card to not even work with a given PC.

Of course, if your graphics card is way more powerful than your CPU, like Foil said, it will be bottlenecked and you won't get your money's worth out of it.

[Lord Shonus]

There's more than one kind of PCIe slot. You need to find out what your mobo is so that you can look up what kind it is.

[gimlet]

Just to make SURE it's not heat, you might try blowing a big fan on the card/motherboard while you're testing it - box fans are kinda handy for this although cyclone fans seem to move more air.   Remember the temperature reported is only where the temperature sensor is, and there could be another component on the card overheating.  Although at 43C that's not TOO likely, it's one of the easiest things to try...

[Sensei]

Just to make SURE it's not heat, you might try blowing a big fan on the card/motherboard while you're testing it - box fans are kinda handy for this although cyclone fans seem to move more air.   Remember the temperature reported is only where the temperature sensor is, and there could be another component on the card overheating.  Although at 43C that's not TOO likely, it's one of the easiest things to try...

Tried running it with the case open and a desk fan blowing on the card, didn't seem to help whatsoever.

[gimlet]

Hmm OK if the pc is from 2003 or so, you probably have a VERY early version of pci-e slots - probably 1.0a.  From reading about the pci-e versions and the HD 6450 specs http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000/hd-6450/pages/amd-radeon-hd-6450-overview.aspx#3, a few things

HD 6450 requires:
Minimum 1GB of system memory   - presume you have at least this much?
pci-e x16 slot - the mobo slot *is* x16 right?  It'd be unusual if it wasn't, but who knows with Dell...
and recommends:
400 Watt or greater power supply recommended - although you had a higher power requirement card work, so your PSU PROBABLY has enough power.  But, if it's the one that came with the PC it could be an older ATX level or something so it can't be ruled out completely.  If nothing else makes any difference you could TRY it with a higher rated PSU if you have access to one...

Also it is pcie version 2.1.  The wiki article on pci-e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express   says about pcie version 2.1:  "Unfortunately, the increase in power from the slot breaks backward compatibility between PCI Express 2.1 cards and some older motherboards with 1.0/1.0a, but most motherboards with PCI Express 1.1 connectors are provided with a BIOS update by their manufacturers through utilities to support backward compatibility of cards with PCIe 2.1." - so you might want to look for any bios updates available for your motherboard.  Now the older the motherboard, the hairier updating the bios was, and having a power glitch or something interrupt the process can make the motherboard unbootable which is a colossal pain in the ass, so I personally almost never update bios except on brand new pc's where there's not much at risk, or unless the bios update looks like it's really really required to fix something.  Still, the other card was presumably drawing MORE power thru this same pci-e slot so even this doesn't sound so likely.

One tip I ran across researching the card said "go into the video driver control panel and click "reset to default" - it apparently changes some setting you can't affect through the gui" - I'd probably try that first just 'cause it's the easiest and looks the least risky...

Also you do have the latest Directx installed?   If nothing else helps you might try uninstalling and re-installing Directx to make absolutely sure...

And, as usual, it'd be worth running a memory diagnostic overnight just to rule that out - it can be the cause of many a flaky problem.  Burn memtest86 to a bootable USB or a CD and let it run overnight...

[Sensei]

I can certainly see the PCIe version being a source of the problem- that is, if it's ever been known to cause spontaneous driver crashes after 20-120 minutes of usage. Given that it originally had XP Service Pack 1 on it*0, it's pretty much certainly PCIe 1.0 or 1.0a, as PCIe 1.1 didn't even come out until 2005. There's even a BIOS update online from 2007, around when the PCIe 2.0 spec was released. Not sure if it's worth the risk of bricking the old computer to try it, though- the motherboard is definitely from the "very flaky" era. Might just end up waiting to build a new one.

*I know because had to reinstall it after the hard drive crashed. What a nightmare getting all the updates on...

[hachnslay]

3 or 4 Updates ago the buttons that insert BBC in the "Post Reply" screen stopped working.
I know most of them, but it is a major inconvenience, since i am trying to start a forum game.

Browser: Google Chrome

Anybody got a simple solution for it?

[Guardian G.I.]

One of my computers has a problem - if I enter BIOS (pressing Del during PC startup) and wait for a couple of minutes, the monitor automatically turns goes into energy saving mode and the computer completely freezes - it doesn't respond to keyboard commands and reset or power buttons. After turning the monitor off and on, it displays the message "No video input". The only way to break it out of that state is pulling the power plug out of the socket.
What's wrong? The operating system works fine and doesn't freeze.

[Telgin]

So you can get into the BIOS, but after a few minutes that happens?  It could well be a bug in the BIOS firmware itself.  They're so complex these days that I wouldn't at all be surprised.

Do you really need to do something complicated in the BIOS that this is preventing?  If there's a newer version of the BIOS you could try flashing it, but I really wouldn't unless you need to.  There's always a small risk of bricking the motherboard when you try that.

[MaximumZero]

One of my computers has a problem - if I enter BIOS (pressing Del during PC startup) and wait for a couple of minutes, the monitor automatically turns goes into energy saving mode and the computer completely freezes - it doesn't respond to keyboard commands and reset or power buttons. After turning the monitor off and on, it displays the message "No video input". The only way to break it out of that state is pulling the power plug out of the socket.
What's wrong? The operating system works fine and doesn't freeze.

If there are multiple video card slots, try the one for onboard? It may be defaulting to that for some reason. I mean, don't hold your breath for a fix, but hey.

3 or 4 Updates ago the buttons that insert BBC in the "Post Reply" screen stopped working.
I know most of them, but it is a major inconvenience, since i am trying to start a forum game.

Browser: Google Chrome

Anybody got a simple solution for it?

Check your Java settings?

[Sappho]

Can anyone recommend any decent free software for converting PDF to Mobi? I got a secondhand Kindle and tried to put my PDFs on there and they're unreadable. I found one program that converts from epub, but nothing from PDF. There are plenty of online conversion sites, but my upload speed averages around 8 kbps, so I really need a program I can just download and keep on the computer.

[Aklyon]

Calibre, possibly. I haven't tried pdf to mobi, but I've tried converting from mobi with it.

[Anvilfolk]

I'm not sure any program that converts PDF->mobi work very well for anything except regular books (as opposed to anything two-column, lots of images, etc)

Especially if they're image PDFs rather than actual text PDFs. Good luck though!