upgrading 2 year old pavilion a6300f and need help

[Possumlips]

I just added the OS win 7 on my computer $120, added a 22 " SVA flat monitor $129 and now i want to go from 2 gb's of ram to the max of 4gb's ddr2 pc2-5300. also want to get a better video card than the builtin chipset nvidia 7100 but i need to know my power supply as some are for 450 watts etc. and i cant find out what mine is without opening it. i think its just a 250 w.any recommendations on a card? i dont mind opening up my pc for a look if i have to.want the best my power supply can handle without upgrading it also.may get a gaming computer in the future is why.specs are as follows...dual core intel pentium e2180, 500 gb hard drive  

[old_geekster]

It would be best if you would open the case and read the tag on the PSU.  I don't believe that it is 450W, however.  I only know of one HP model that has a PSU with that much wattage.  It is very new.  If it is 250W, it is nearly impossible to find a video card that will work properly and give you a boost in performance.

[Alaska99801]

I disagreed with Old Geester about the requirements on power supply.  Right now I am typing this on a Slimline s5150t with a 220 watts PSU.  It came originally from HP with an ATI Radeon HD 4350 with 512 MB of memory.  If you look that video card up it will say that you need either 300 or 350 watts power supply.  But the case is you never will need what the card manufacturers recommend.  Their numbers are worst case scenario and if you run everything in your PC (HD, DVD, etc.) at 100% max all the time, and no one does that!

I upgraded the video card to a better one, Geforce 9600 GT, low power, low profile from Galaxy and all is running well and cool.  So, do not worry too much about the power supply and your video card requirements.  On top of that I upgraded the CPU from an E-5300 to a Quad 9400 and still all is well and running cool with the same 220 watts power supply.  I have checked everything with CPUID and GPUZ. I have run all benchmarks and burn-in test from Passmark and have found no errors due to overheating or power supply issues.  No errors at all.

Use this link I am going to give you to check what you real world power supply requirements are.  You will be surprised how low they are.

http://www.antec.outervision.com/index.jsp

Just trying to help.

[Possumlips]

I was hoping someone could help me.I'm still looking for a card that would help.My a6300f HP has a 250 watt power supply, and i can bypass the intergrated graphics nvidia 7100 with the PCI Express X16 port. I still haven't boosted the RAM from 2 gb's to 4 yet. I also have over 300 gb's on my 500 gb hard drive even after 3 years.I know that doesn't matter much just letting you know all the info i do.It runs too slow on games like americas army 3 and silent hunter-wolves of the pacific to play them even on low settings.I can play flight sim x and hunting unlimited '10 on low settings tho.I don't have the money to buy a good 3d gamer computer,just want to upgrade to a higher number on my graphics performance.I'm just afraid of putting out alot of money on a card that wont work with my HP and not being able to return it.thanks for any info.