Do It Yourself: Installing A New Graphics Card

Ok, so you need to replace your current graphics card. Perhaps the one currently in your system is failing, or perhaps you need some extra power in order to play that latest games title. You've ordered your graphics card online, or bought it from a local supplier, but what now? Do you entrust your PC to a computer store, or attempt the job yourself?

It's a fact that a computer store is likely to charge you for the installation work, but in truth, installing a graphics card isn't difficult and doesn't take long.

In this article, we'll look at the steps required to replace a graphics card, and how you can quickly and easily remove your old graphics card and replace it with a new one.

• Download latest drivers for new graphics card
• Remove old drivers
• Gain access to inside of PC
• Locate old graphics card
• Install new graphics card
• Test & Troubleshoot
• Close up PC

You'll already have selected your graphics card so all that's left is to fit it into your PC. However, there are a couple of things you need to do to your current system first before you do anything to the PC's innards.

Firstly, visit the vendor responsible for your new graphics card's GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) and download the latest drivers for your card. Drivers are the software which interacts with your PC's operating system, and provides the operating system with instructions on how to use the card.

Once you have downloaded the new drivers for your new card, it's time to remove the old ones. This is very important as leaving the old drivers on your PC could cause conflicts with your new drivers and make your PC unstable. You should always uninstall old drivers before installing new ones, even if the drivers are from the same vendor. To uninstall your old drivers, browse to your Control Panel and look for Add/Remove programs. Once you have found it, look for reference in the program list for your current graphics card.

For ATI cards, it will say something like 'ATI Display Drivers', while for Nvidia cards, it will say something like 'Nvidia Drivers'. When you have found them, highlight the entry and click on the 'Change/Remove' tab to remove the software and once finished, close down the PC. The next step is where you need to get your hands dirty!