This guide is written in the knowledge that you do not currently have any graphics card installed other than your onboard graphics. If you already have a graphics card installed which you wish to replace, please remove it before installing the new card. You may find this guide helpful in understanding how to remove old graphics cards.
Newly released games are requiring more and more powerful graphics cards every day and installing a new card can make your gameplay much smoother and faster. Finding the cheapest and best performing card might be a problem, but physically installing them definatly shouldn’t.
Today we’re going to be installing a nvidia 8500GT PCI-E, this is a relatively old card that I had lying around but still handles games such as Call Of Duty Modern Warfare quite well on medium settings. Please excuse the dust gathered in the heatsink, for a quick guide on unclogging heatsinks I highly recommend our guide on How To Clean Your PC.
After removing the side panel of my PC, you can now see my Foxconn motherboard. The PCI-E slot where the new graphics card will be housed is the longest yellow slot. PCI-E slots are typically yellow or white and will almost always look the same shape as the one pictured below. The black and yellow cable running over the slot is a 4 pin connector supplying power to my CPU, it gets in the way a bit, but until I purchase a new power supply it is going to have to stay put.
You can roughly see 4 screws on the left hand side of the picture, these keep the card slot covers in place which purely act as a barrier between the innards of your PC and the outside world. You may have noticed that I have already removed the top slot opposite the PCI-E connector in order to make room for the new graphics card, you should do the same.
Now you will need to physically insert the new graphics card into the yellow PCI-E slot. All that’s needed is common sense to figure out which way it fits. When inserting the card, keep an eye out for the metal slot on the left hand side (where the ports are) to make sure it is correctly aligned, the same applies for the connecting pins which fit into the yellow slot on the motherboard. Also, try not to be too forceful if it doesn’t slot in straight away as you might damage the connecting pins. When it is properly inserted you should hear a click, letting you know that is secured. However, the card will still wobble about, and this is where you need to screw the card to the case.
On the top left of the picture below you can see that I have screwed the graphics card to the case using a thumbscrew. I highly recommend these for almost every part of your PC which requires a screw as they are so quick and easy to use. Now your card is firmly secured, make sure there are no wires in contact, or close to the heatsink on the card, as this can cause the wire to melt or for the heatsinks to stop functioning properly (thus causing dangerous overheating problems).
Your new graphics card is now successfully installed! All that is needed now is to refit your cases side panel and to connect the graphics card to your monitor. Here’s what my graphics card looks like from the rear of the case:
As you can see, this card has HDMI (pink), VGA (blue) and TV-Out (black) ports. Make sure you connect the PC to your monitor using one of these ports, NOT your onboard adaptors that you have used previously as this will not work. This is because the new graphics card automatically overrides onboard ports.
Now, boot up your PC and enjoy your newly enhanced graphics!
