What video card?

jaydeeuk1

Bios update won't achieve anything. its the actual hardware that is out of date and causing the issue.

savemoney

I believe it was me who mentioned the 8400

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=22260537&postcount=15

bertietheblue wrote: »

Psychofly mentions the Nvidia 8400 but Knub thinks that's PCIe and I can't find it as a PCI card either.

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/9556293/PNY-Geforce-8400GS-512MB-PCI-Graphics-Card/Product.html

savemoney

I agree it wont help in this situation the problem is old hardware and hardware that on a pc that can hardly be upgraded easily accept using old technology, ddr 1 ram, old Intel cpus, psu non standard, its cheaper to get a new rig if you went down that road

Only bios trick would be to set dell pc to boot from pci card assuming you upgraded rather than intregrated intel graphics which even when new were well out of date

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Bios update won't achieve anything. its the actual hardware that is out of date and causing the issue.

jaydeeuk1

Best chance of a deal is ebay, or if you're lucky, freecycle.

Bigpockets sometimes have good deals up, nothing there at moment though.

bertietheblue

Savemoney

Indeed it was you who suggested the Nvidia 8400 first - thanks! And since 3 of you have suggested it, I'll go with that.

Frankly, if I didn't try and bought a new computer I'd be forever wondering if it would have worked and if I'd needlessly discarded my old computer so for the sake of £40 or so wish me luck! I'll let you know soon enough.

savemoney

Well I am no novice when it comes to computer 25+ years but I must admit graphics card are always evolving so quickly it so difficult to judge what to get even I am confused as I am now for my daughter, I am in same situation as yourself what to do, although we have a new pc, it has a pcie slot but is low profile meaning it needs a small card that can not take too much power ie psu is rated 300w.

Sims 3 does work though but on medium settings even though pc has dual core 2, 4gb ddr2 ram, 1tb drive, I upgraded pc as soon as we got it from 1gb ranm to 4gb and 250mb hard drive to 1tb one

If money si tight I either go from 8400 at Novatech or play or the dabs one that AHAR said just above. It should run better at least

If you do upgrade at a later stage then feel free to ask for advice.

Percy1983

have a look here:

Bigpockets Computer

Basically £40 on a PCI-E card will be a lot better than £40 on a PCI card, also it does have 2GB ram.

Knub

Savemoney seems correct, if you can get the 8400 PCI card for £40-50 then definatley go for it!

Didn't notice the PCI type cards earlier, just the PCI-E versions - which you obviously don't need.

bertietheblue

Knub, Psychofly, savemoney, jaydeeuk1, AceRider and everyone else - thanks! I'll post when I've got the new video card/RAM installed.

Cheers
Bertie

bertietheblue

Just to update: my friend installed the RAM and 8400 PCI video card yesterday and after a while figuring out why the screen went blank after the PC had fired up (there was a conflict with the built-in video card, which had to be disabled), all was working and my son was able to play Sims 3. Cheers all!