barebones bb xp27ubb graphics needed

[17bex]

First post - so please be gentle.... bought ths novatech barebones bundle about two years ago...

Ony got 256mb and the on board graphics is grabbing 32MB of it.

Computer is oooooh so slow now..

Any ideas on whether i can add a graphics card and what speed memory i'll need..

cheers

17b

[Taxation]

What expansion slots does the motherboard have.
How much RAM do you have installed

A pci graphics card will provide better performance than a onboard graphics card.
AGP is being phased out, but still has some good cards
PCI-E is the newest expansion slot, lots of cards for a variety of prices

[17bex]

256MB as said in original post 32 of it being used by the onboard.

motherboard expansion slots - no idea - was hoping someone with the same motherboard might have some advice.

[Taxation]

256mb isnt really that great to be honest with you
try getting an extra memory module in there,that should boost performance.
Get a gfx card and more memory for gaming
more memory will increase the day to day performance by alot

[teknokid]

for todays apps you really want atleast 512mb of ram!

[Coops]

Ok, Well i would suggest more RAM. Only 256mb is not a lot for systems these days and especially as you mentioned 32mb is grabbed by the onboard VGA of the SIS 741 Core.

So more Ram for sure.

Your mainboard also features an 8x AGP graphics slot, so certainly if you are playing games then getting a graphics card would be much better than using onboard. However its not worth getting if you only use you machine for light work such as word processing, internet, email etc.

[teknokid]

a 7300gt would be good for light gaming.

[17bex]

well i ordered another 512 mb of ram and perhaps unnecessarily a

1 x NOV-FX2128 Novatech GeForce FX5200 128MB 8XAGP

i don't do much gaming (read none) so i probably should have bougt another 512 Mb instead...

[17bex]

Can anyone give advice on how to set up the graphics card ?

can i just plug it in - plug the monitor in it and expect windows to sort it for me on boot ?

do i have to do anything to stop the onborad card grabbing 32 mb ??

[Taxation]

Go into bios by pressing F2 when the computer starts and disable the onboard VGA.
You can plug and play the gfx card, but then you will have to download the latest drivers from http://www.nvidia.co.uk
Load the drivers on
Reboot and your set

And i had a 5200,and for gaming they can be a little ....................rubbish,but i played bf2 and that eats any system up. css should work fine though

[17bex]

just plugged it in and went through the installation process on the cd.

Should i have disabled the onboard in the bios - if so can someone inform me how to do that,,

now have a memory problem - can't get the new 512 mb dimm work with the old 256 mb dimm.

256mb is 256MB DDR-SDRAM 3.0-4-4-4 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1

512 mb is 512MB DDR-SDRAM 2.5-4-4-4 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) CR1

[Taxation]

try with just the 512 in there

[17bex]

yep that works..

do i have to ditch the 256 then...bummer

[Taxation]

Might just be a compatibility issue between the 2 RAM modules,but have you found a performance boost with the extra amount of RAM and the gfx card??

[17bex]

marginal - but its cost me £60 ish for about 288mb of ram...

would have been better off buying 2 x 512 mb dimms - i reckon that would have given more improvement.

any way of getting the two lots o memory working together ?