Dell

good old days

I bought a computer 3 years and 2 months ago off Dell. it cost me 3.5k then, spec as follows: P4 processor; 1000mb of ram; 100gb of hard disk; writable disk drive (not sure what speed) oh and an ATI 9800XT graphics card.

My graphic cards fan stopped working over Christmas, so I needed a new graphics card - I might as well upgrade while I'm at it. Tried a few stores no luck so went on line to buy one off Dell and do you know what ---- TO GET ANY TYPE OF GRAPHIC CARD FOR MY PC (same as 9800XT or better) I NEED TO BUY A WHOLE NEW COMPUTER, why because Dell used a different power supply on the Dimension 8300.

Has anybody else had this type of problem with Dell, BTW I asked the dell tech "do they have a complaints dept phone number" his reply "I have no update on that sir" - "OK do you have a complaints dept. " I have no update on that sir" - It was like speaking to a robot when they discovered they could not help.

Dark Chronicle

Don't lsten to dell. They told me the same, and to be honest they are taliking out of their arse.

I bought a Dimension 8300 with similar specs to yours around 2-3 years ago and recently upgraded it. I is now running with a Radeon X1950 Pro 512mb AGP card, and I also upgraded the power supply to 500w. They are a costly card but are definately the best AGP card on the market.

Have a look at my thread a bit down the list entitled "which agp graphics card" and you'll find all the answers you need. The guys here really helped me out so credit goes to them also.

8T8

Essentially a 7600GS AGP is what you will want, it will be equal to if not better than the 9800XT that it replaces.

Anything higher than that would require a new PSU most likely.

good old days

Thanks Dark Chronicle and 8T8;

8T8, what dose AGP mean - when i was trying to fix my graphic card my pc was talking about AGV being installed or removed.

thanks again

TerrorFirmer

Don't listen to Dell, first of all.

AGP is the brown slot the card goes into, it is an older standard now compared to PCI express but there are still plenty of cards around so finding one is not an issue whatsoever.

If you can power a 9800XT you can probably power a fairly modern card without too many issues, most of which are fairly efficent in the general mid-range.

Although you could just buy a new fan for your 9800xt, PC World and Maplins sell vga fans for 15-40 euro depending on how good you want.

What do you do with the card, mostly?

good old days

thanks HavoK - i was in pc world the other day and they knew what was wrong with my Graphic card, i.e. the fan was broken, why did they not tell me about a replacement fan.

I play games mainly - and not always high end graphics games - more in to fun games, not what they look like - the card went down when i tried to play Never Winter Nights 2 - (When the card went down i also tried it on other games that i played forever and i was getting the same message as with NWN 2)