BleepingComputer.com: How To check motherboard compatibility..

hey guys....
my old graphics card is totally beyond repair...and,ive yet to save up to get a new system
soo,thinkin of gettin a geforce 6 series or better 7 series to last me another few months..my current card is 6600...it'll would be sweet to get a 6800 or the highest possible that my motherboard can support...
but thats the problem..bought the dell comp like ages ago(maybe 5 yrs?lol)...upgraded its ram n sound card awhile back...and it frustrating not to have a personal comp working..lol...but im totally lost on how to check the compatibility off my motherboard...like,what it possesses[sic] n etc...is there a way to check on the system itself or only thru sight?

sorry guys,i noe how stupid this question is...but,just hoping to learn n so,after this,i would not need to rely on people so much...
thanks alot for the answers guys..

cheers

What model Dell?

The system/motherboard specs should indicate the types of graphics card the board accommodates.

Louis

The GeForce 6 or 7 is quite old. So far, there have been GeForce 8, 9, and the GTX series. Given the age of the PC, you may not be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest GPU, but you can at least get one that works. In order to determine if you can use a new graphics card, we need to know more about your system. One of the simplest ways to determine which motherboard you have is to run CPUz. You can download it here. Run the program and it will give you information on the CPU, but if you click on the mainboard tab, it will list all of the motherboard (a.k.a. mainboard) information. Tell us, or take a screen shot, of what it says there. However, if the PC is not working, you may have issues in running this software. You can send us the model number of the Dell PC and we can look it up. Typically, there are two different types of graphics card slots in a PC and you have to get the right one. This is an AGP slot. The brown socket at the top is AGP whereas the white ones are standard PCI. AGP is older and has been replaced in most PC's by the PCI Express slot. In this image, the two longer sockets are PCI Express x16 slots. If your PC has neither of these slots, AGP or PCI Express, you may be limited to standard PCI cards. Also, if you're going for a high-end graphics card, you will need to know the wattage of your power supply. That cannot be determined through CPUz, but there should be a sticker on the back of your computer that will list the wattage. Typically, it is located on the back of the PC.

thats the screenshot...and my psu is around 170W
and,thanks man...ive learnt new stuff...

Dell Dimension 4550 specs: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst...m4550/specs.htm

Louis

Your computer uses AGP 4x and your power supply is too low to handle many of the graphics cards on the market. I don't see how a GeForce 6600 could work with that PC since the 6200 requires a 300W power supply. According to Dell, you have a 250W power supply. Some of the lower-end cards should work.

thx alot guys..

since uve said the power is too low,is it possible for the fan on my 6600 to suddenly stop working due to the lack of power from my psu?
cause,i guess i've gta get new psu too...

The fan doesn't require a great deal of power and after several years, it will eventually break. I had an old GeForce 4 break like this. Given the age of the PC, you may be better off just buying a new one.

lol...yea man...bt i just don't have money right now...hopefully by end of the year...soo,might get a psu that i can use in my future system and just some old card to get me thru...anyway,another question,since my comp is memory is ddr,it won't support cards that are ddr2/ddr3?

Correct.

Each type of RAM has a different count for connectors and they are mutually exclusive by design.

The motherboard determines what type of RAM is supported on a system.

Louis

I just realized that my previous post re memory...was a bit off the mark...well, very much off the mark .

Both the system and an a physical memory card...employ memory. The memory employed by an actual video card does NOT have any relationship at all to the RAM employed by the system.

There are no compatibility concerns if the graphics card employs DDR3 (because that memory is contained as part of the structure of the graphics card and has nothing to do with system RAM installed) while the system utilizes DDR or DDR2 memory.

In fact, the only time that there is a correlation between video RAM and system RAM...occurs only when using onboard video. Onboard video derives it's RAM for processing from whatever is installed in the system.

Apologies, sometimes I respond to just a post, word, or sentence...without viewing it in proper context .

Louis

haha,no worries man.....
must have been the way i asked the question in the first place...
anyway,thats cool than...this is all good info...helps alot..haha...

anyway,thanks alot guys..really appreciate the help...

cheers