Guide for Selecting a Discrete Video Card

[Inexperienced]

Thanks Big dave I will make some enquiries.

Much appreciated!

[Big_Dave]

Hi arronfranke,

What other modifications have you made to your PC?

[aaronfranke]

Hardware modifications? So far this is the first thing I've done. As for software, yesterday I also tried updating the BIOS to see if that helped but it still has that error. Any other software modifcations such as programs honestly shouldn't (and I believe can't) prevent the computer from POSTing. Could the hardware in my PC be too old for the card? It's PCI-e 2.0 x16 slot vs a PCI-e 3.0 x16 card, but I've been told these are backwards compatible. I bought my PC in January 2012 and this is a 2014 card.

[Big_Dave]

Hi arronfranke,

Check with the video card manufacturer and find out what is specified for the minimum power supply wattage size. It's probably 400+ watts. Additionally, ask the manufacturer if your particular graphics card requires UEFI 2.3.1 bios.

[Speed20103]

Hi,

can I run the new gtx 750 on my pc

Pc Specs

Thanks.

[aaronfranke]

Even if you would be able to, I wouldn't recommend it, it would he heavily bottlenecked by your other components. Pentiums are oooold news. I recommend either building or buying a new computer first.

@Big_Dave: I was unable to find any information regarding what kind of BIOS it requires. From my understanding, the card's total wattage is only recommended wattage, the card itself only needs 30 Watts, which is 1 more than my previous card requested, thus the entire reason I chose this one.

[gramps2one]

Uhg, did I just make a mistake? I have a p6142p with original parts and I just ordered a 

EVGA GeForce GT 610 2048MB DDR3, DVI, Mini-HDMI, Graphics Card (02G-P3-2617-KR). 

[ajwhiting]

Hi aaronfranke

I had a similar problem when i tried to upgrade my HP PC with an AMD HD7950 (See page 12 of this thread), HP ultimately told me that the PC wasn't meant to be upgraded so wouldn't offer me any support.

I tried updating the HP motherboard with the latest BIOS but that didn't help, tested the components in other computers to check everything worked, in the end I bought a new Gigabyte motherboard to replace the HP one. At first it didn't work, but once I installed the latest BIOS for the Gigabyte motherboard it worked fine and i've been happily gaming since.

The moral of this story is HP pc's are not meant to be upgraded.

[Inexperienced]

After taking advice from the forum I contacted HP customer Services who reccomended I buy AMD Radeon HD 7450 DP (1GB) PCIe x16 Graphics Card.

It came with no instructions but I followed advice form the net and

Started my computer in safe mode

Went into device manager and disabled the onboard graphics

Turned the computer off

Fitted the card

Turned the computer on again and plugged the monitor into the graphic card

I then ran the driver CD but got a message saying

"setup has detected an incomplete build. Set up will now exit"

I tried resiting the card but nothing changed.

I ran the Performance and Information Tools and got the message

"gaming graphics not detected"

The score had gone down form 3.5 with the onboard graphics, to 1

I have now re-enabled the onboard graphics.

I don't know what to do, can anyone help me please?

[Big_Dave]

Hi Inexperienced,

You should not have to disable the onboard graphics as the bios will do that function automatically when the video card is detected. Try the AMD graphics driver from the AMD web site. Download the driver to the desktop and boot up normally.  Windows will use a default video driver if the AMD driver is not found.  Now install the AMD graphics driver. The AMD 7450 is actually a rebranded AMD 6450.  I am surprised that HP would even recommend the 7450 as some AMD cards have been known not to work in some of the HP PC models. If you can't get the 7450 to work then return it and get the equivalent NVIDIA low profile card.