Upgrade graphics card suggestions

[Tim5]

Hi all --- looking for some advice:

HP Slimline Desktop s5-1015t, Win 7, 8 RAM, 2.6 GHz ----- Graphics performance is the slowest and would like to check out putting a better card

NEW - trying to find my post of a couple of weeks ago and this may not be the way to do a follow-up.

I just received a new graphics card GelForce GT520, as suggested, so imagine my surprise when I (finally) pull open the case and there are no slots in which to insert the new card (or pull the old one).  In fact, everything is straight off the mother board and nothing can be added or replaced except the RAM.

Ok, my mistake for not looking first.  I'll send it back.  But for anyone with this same HP desktop, this is a lesson to be learned.

Thanks

Tim5

[lasvegaswireman · Accepted solution]

Tim,

Here is a link to the original thread. I pulled the information straight from HP's support pages and their Partsurfer database. Please post a picture of the inside of your computer, so I can see exactly where the discrepancy exists. Please refer to your HP Carmel motherboard specs for a photo of the motherboard. The motherboard specs state;

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD Integrated graphics
Supports PCI Express x16 graphics cards
*Integrated video is not available if a graphics card is installed

Frank

[erico]

This is how your moterboard layout should appear.

[Tim5]

Well, many thanks to both of you who were exactly right when I finally sorted out what I was suppose to be doing.  Thanks to Frank for the details and for getting me to take another look rather than just sending it back;  and thanks to Erico for the picture/diagram with arrow which did the final trick.

What a great forum.

Thanks again

Tim

[schoolboy45]

My mother board has 3 slotson it

[Tim5]

Hi all:  here's an update of my situation --- as the world turns.....

For my mini-tower pc, the graphic above with the arrow showing the slot is correct --- there is only one slot.

And depending on what level of detail you like, here's what has happened.  With the factory specified card (listed above) it went into the slot ok, but with the mini tower, it wouldn't fit past the frame.  But, leaving the side off and the game plug sticking out, I could try it.  Running the "Performance Information and Tools" in Control Panel, the over-all score dropped one tenth of one point because that graphics sub-score dropped that one tenth of a point and it takes the lowest sub-score for the basic score.

So, I put the original graphics card back and it returned to 5.1.  OK, so now I have a card to sell because I can't return it.

Then, mixed in with all of this I started having the blue screen of death during shut down and/or when going to sleep.  I even did a factory restore and reinstall of everything and it still happened.  So now, I've changed the power management settings so that only the video screen goes to sleep and everything else stays on.  It's only been a day, but so far it's running great.

BTW, knowing how complicated these things are, I did upgrade the RAM from 4  to 8 gig cause on the 64 bit Windows 7 it does help and it really did.  I replaced both with identical Crucial 4 gig cards so I'm guessing it hasn't been a part of these other problems.

I might have to break down and call HP to try to get them to replace the whole thing but I dread trying to go through that. 

Tim