There are certain steps that are the same regardless of what kind of computer that you are working on. These are the steps which we are going to cover at this time.
When doing any sort of computer work it is important to remember that errors do happen and mistakes can often wipe out important information unless certain precautions are observed. One of these very important preparations that you should take when you upgrade you PC is establish a system restore point in the event of trouble. I do not like to be the bearer of bad news but these thing can and often do occur so you should be prepared. The system restore point will allow you to back track to a time prior to making your changes in order to bring everything back the way it was.
After you have accomplished the system restore point you can turn your computer off. In the event that you were to need this restore point you would do the actual restore and then turn off your computer, reinsert you old video card and connect the monitor to it. In the case of an integrated video connection merely connect the monitor to the board’s video connector. Next reboot the windows operating system and you will be returned to your previous settings.
If your computer happens to have Windows XP or 2000 installed you will need to provide yourself with administrator rights. These are necessary since only administrators are permitted to install drivers and other software. If you are running any sort of antivirus program it must be disabled before installing the video card. Since you will be installing the drivers from the enclosed CD you should not have any concerns about obtaining viruses from the drivers. Once your installation is completed you can then again restart your virus protection.
The motherboard of your computer not only contains the CPU, the RAM, and various expansion slots but it also has several chips whose job it is to ensure that all these various parts work together. This chip is known as the chipset. You would want to have updated chipset drivers to install at this time.
An important aspect to keep in mind as you are doing this work is static electricity. This type of electricity is generated from your hands or perhaps tools and it tends to zap your sensitive electronic chips. If that were to happen your computer would be nothing more then a heavy paperweight. You could do not work on it what so ever. In order to avoid this static electricity it is important that you ground yourself prior to touching anything inside your CPU case. You can easily discharge static electricity by merely touching any metal portion of the case.
When working on your computer you should ensure that the power cord is disconnected from the machine. Handle any of the cards that are used for computers carefully by the edge. After you have installed the new video card in the slot and rebooted then your windows system should automatically detect the proper drivers which you had previously installed. In that case you are well on your way to having a good video card installation.
