Hard Drive help?
 

Resolved issue

So I've been using a borrowed computer as my desktops, Graphics card died. The light on the monitor is amber and I get nothing but a black screen.

After three days of google searching I have come up with these three for my XPS 410 dell paperweight.

Ati Radeon hd 5770
ATI Radeon hd 6770
Nvidia 9300

I have also read that if the card is too powerful that it could bottleneck and slow the computer down/ possibly harm the motherboard.

but replacing the 375w to a 600w/650w corsair would be a good choice. I am on a limited budget and can't swing $150/$400 for a single card.

If anyone knows anything about this, the help would really be appreciated.

I personally have a Radeon HD 6770. don't really think it's a powerful enough card to have any bottleneck issues. I have a600w power supply alon with it and it works fine.

I've never heard of them...wait are they the ones with hallmark and all you need is the program and a webcam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDmPxCxJtzw

He means a GPU (Graphical Processing Unit), which is a part of a PC.

oh, nevermind then, carry on.

Thanks man, I'm leaning on gettin a ATI Radeon hd 6770 with a corsair 600w.

My family is still trying to figure out what happened to the family's desktop because it can't play any games without the monitor receiving no signal after like 5 minutes of playing a game. thought it was the graphics card being fried but it's not that we think it might be the graphics cards fan that's fried has anyone had this problem/could help with any info or ideas?

It does sound like it might be an overheating issue. It's safe to run a computer with the case open, so go ahead and open it up and you can watch the fans to see if they're running when they should be.

If the fan isn't spinning, or if it's spinning slowly, then the fan probably needs to be replaced. If the fan is running at a proper speed, it may be that there's damage to the card itself (potentially heat damage) and it becomes unstable when it warms up, even if it's not technically overheating.

its not good to run the case open. if the case makes it over heat you can either install new fans to cirulate air flow or just replace the case and move all the internal parts to the new case.

The graphics cards are decent options i would say go with the 6770 because its a good one. um for the power supply i suggest going for one that has at least 100watts over the recommended graphic cards requirements.

Yeah, naturally you still want to keep the insides clean; gumming up the airflow with dust or hair isn't good for it. But that's nothing a can of compressed air and a vacuum cleaner can't fix.

Edit: I wasn't suggesting running it with the case open on a regular basis, only as a troubleshooting step.

well yeah i did that for sometime with my desktop.
Just to vent out some of the dust

if you have access to another graphics card you could always swap it in and see if you still get the same issue. It does sound like an overheating issue though.

Asus nVIDIA 3D GeForce GTX 560 TI DirectCu II TOP Graphics Card (1GB) is my card and it works pretty amazing :3

About those graphics cards...If you're gonna be running games on them, the ATI stuff should be fine. Just don't....don't be like me and try to run Autodesk and engineering crap on ATI. It doesn't work. Go with NVIDIA for any graphics-intensive stuff besides gaming.

That's... kinda unexpected. I've had good results with precision graphics on ATI in recent years.

My laptop has only a internal graphics card and its the intel thing and i get very decent frame rates 30-50 range on most games

I have found that there's no real different between similar spec'd cards from both brands.. the main differences being the utility software and such. I use ATI for gaming, video edit, running servers and 3D modelling fine. I only choose ATI because I know them, and the Pc hardware course I did used ATI systems.

I certainly wouldn't say there are much in the way of areas in which one brand wont work, and the other will o.O

Ended up getting a EVGA gtx 550 ti and a Corsair 650w PSU. Hopefully those are good, two weeks of researching this and those seem to be the best "low budget" choices. And unlike my old geforce 7300 this one has it's own fan.

Slowly I will upgrade this hunk of junk.

Not sure if I should save for the motherboard next or a new hard drive. But I do appreciate all those who helped, Thank you.

And I hope that one other guy in my thread comes back and lets us know how his issue turned out.

Hard drive is more accessible. Upgrading your motherboard means being careful to get one that's compatible with your CPU and your graphics card.

Agreeing with Coda on this one. Motherboard (while nice to upgrade) requires a hell of a lot more research so you can make sure it is compatible with all your other hardware (namely graphics card, processor, etc.).

Well by the time I saved up enough for one, half a year/a year would have passed. I'm a newb at this and will have to learn what would go good with what I have/will upgrade.

So allowing myself time to know wth I am doing would probably be wise, ha ha.