-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Memory and Video Card
- From: "BashfulBob" <BashfulBob@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "PCTT" <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 17:57:22 -0500
Hi Judith
First, I think you can install the memory and card inside the puter without
a tech. We all started with doubts, at least I did and still do.
Please read this and all material that came with the hardware first, before
you open the case. You may have to d/l the manuals first if you do not have
them. Anything your not clear on or unsure about, post the question and
someone will get to you with some kind of answer.
If you know someone that can help you, you may want to invite them over for
dinner. I suggest if you do this, they take a supervisor role and you
perform all hands on work. Set aside a couple of hours for your new
adventure.
I suggest you look through your bios and/or MB manual to see what it says
about settings for a video card. If you do not have a manual, I suggest you
go to the manufacturing web site and see if you can d/l one and any help
line numbers that may be available. If you do not know how to tell who made
the bios or the MB, I then suggest you go to this link
http://www.peripheral.com/support/downloads/default.htm or
http://www.belarc.com/ . d/l there little program and install it, then run
it . The program will tell you who made the bios and all the hardware and
software you have installed in your puter. Great for talking to techs, etc.
I have it and use it. You then can do a search for the respective web site
and see about any d/l's. The better MB's have the manufacture and model
number printed on them some where. Mine are printed in white letters and a
little hard to see without a flashlight.
Now that you have read all the material and fought your way through nerd
eaze in the manuals and instructions, ( like all of us had to do when we
started) your ready to begin the actual installation. You initiation into
the college of GEEKETTE is beginning. Welcome.
Next you will need a small and medium size phillips screwdriver, a small
pair of needle nose pliers and a flashlight. Preferable non magnetized ones.
Second, disconnect the power cord (at least) if not all the cords (Mouse,
keyboard, monitor, etc) from the back of the case. Disconnect the power cord
first and reconnect it last. If you are afraid that you will not remember
what goes where, make a sketch or color code the cords and receptacles. New
MB's are usually all ready color coded. Usually all the cords can only hook
into one receptacle and/or there are notches in the plug (keyboard and mouse
for instance).
The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is to (I can not stress this strong
enough) TOUCH THE CASE FIRST and discharge any static electricity that your
body has stored up before you touch anything inside or the new parts. Here
is why. Men give off 30,000 volts of static electricity and women give of
40,000 volts. The reason why the difference is the women's undergarments.
There is not enough amps to kill. There is enough volts to ruin your putter
and/or equipment. So, TOUCH THE CASE FIRST, (each and every time you take
both hands of the puter at the same time) or go down and purchase what is
referred to as a wrist strap. It wraps around your wrist and you connect the
other end to your case. Keep it connected to you and the case all the time
you work on it. Thus you are grounded to the case. This is why the parts
come in those special plastic wrappers or bags. PS keep the wrappers or
bags, don't throw them away.
(Touch metal FIRST, grounding yourself before you take the memory and card
out of the bags or open up the case or touch parts within the case.) Remove
the sides of the case and/or back. Remember what these screws look like so
you can tell the difference from the others you will be removing. You may
want to put each different type in small bowls or glasses. Look and study to
see how the memory is held in place on the motherboard. Mine has clips
attached to the MB and snap into notches on the both ends of the memory. You
might look at the new memory first to see if the notches are there and get
some idea how far the memory has to be inserted. If yours is like mine, you
have to move (swivel, unsnap) the catches away from the memory. To install
the memory, insert the memory into the slots and make sure they are seated
firmly and swivel the latches (snap them) in the slots on the memory. Make
sure they are well seated in the notches and slots or you could have a loose
connection between the memory and the MB. You may have to rock the memory
slightly to seat and unseat them. On some that is a requirement. That's it.
When you next turn on the puter it will see and recognize the new memory. I
am assuming both the old and new memory are the same type. If not DON"T MIX
them.
Please consider doing one thing at a time. You may want to install the
memory first and then reconnect the puter back up and make sure it is
running ok before you install the card. This is time consuming and a pain in
the ****, but if things don't work right, it narrows down where you have to
look for the problem. At this point you may want to write down on a piece of
paper, I am saving $75 per hour, 100 times. :-)
Next, for the video card. I am going to assume that the video card type is
the same for both. In other words, both go into PCI slots or both go into
ACP slots. First read and understand all the written material that comes
with the card before you start. To remove the old one, unscrew the screw
that holds the metal plate the card is attached to (Look at the new one
first to see what I am talking about if you need to). Disconnect any wires
that may be connected to the old video card. Some video cards have fans,
etc, that get there power from the MB. If you need to connect wires from
your new video card to the MB, refer to your MB manual for where they go
assuming the old one card has none or the connectors are different. If you
do not have a manual, you may have to go to the MB or video card manufacture
and d/l one if it is available. I suggest you do this even if you do not
need to at the moment as it may come in handy down the road when the
manufacture does not make it available for d/l in the future. Now remove the
old video card from the slot. This may require some rocking of the card and
extra pressure pulling up on it. Once it is removed, insert the new card.
Makes sure all the pins line up within the whole slot. Push the card in by
placing your thumb or fingers in the middle of the top edge of the card and
increase downward pressure to seat it. You may have to move your fingers to
one edge or the other, back and forth to seat it. If you think it is taking
to much pressure to seat it, check it for proper alignment in the slot. Make
sure it is well seated in and not just mostly in. These cards are notorious
for not getting seated all the way. People sometimes feel they have to press
too hard on it to get it seated properly. Once it is seated in, reconnect
the wires (if any) and the screw that holds the video card plate to the back
of the case. Reconnect the wires to the back of the case. You may or may not
want to put the sides back on now, as you may have to get into the case
again if things aren't working right. Your call.
Bios time.
Each Bios have similarities and more then not differences. Even between
models of the same manufacture. Since I do not know what you have, I can
only tell you how mine works. there will be some things similar and some
differences. Take the philosophy (if you will) and apply it to your bios.
First, I suggest that before you install anything you make some dry runs
through the bios, till you are more comfortable with it. It is important
that during the dry ones, you exit the Bios without saving ANYTHING. (We
will get to that momentarily) It would behoove you to have some paper and a
pencil handy when you start this. It is not as scary as it might seem to you
right now, just go slow and double check what your doing and before you know
it, it will become a piece of cake.
ok, you ready
Reboot your puter. On mine the opening screen says to hit the "DEL" key and
doing that takes me into the Bios.
Right now I am going to baby step through things. If you feel comfortable
going ahead do so. If at anytime you get to a point that you feel you cannot
proceed because you do not understand, got confused or have a question, stop
write the questions down, exit and email me or the group. (I suggest at this
point you do not save any changes.)
The Bios comes up with the opening screen stating that it is an "AWARD Bios
setup utility", the next header line gives me 5 selections, which take me to
different screens, and they are "Main - Advanced - Power - Boot - Exit".
Below that is the main screen where changes can be made and we aren't going
there right now. At the very bottom of the screen I am given 8 different key
commands that will enable me to navigate through the bios and make
changes/selections, save and exit. If yours have these here, read over them
well until you fully understand them or write them down. They may or may not
be on other screens. On another computer I have, the main bios page just
gives a main page with subjects that I have to highlight and hit the enter
key to find out what changes I can make. The navigation keys in it are about
the same as this one.
First, before we begin, note that in mine, hitting the "EXC" key will back
me out to the previous page, window, etc I was at. By repeating this, I
eventually will get back to the beginning or at least to the selection of
the headers. This key can be used to save you if you get into problems.
Lets discuss navigating the header (with the 5 selections) first. I move
from one to the other by using the left and right arrows. My selections are
highlighted as I move from one to another. As you do this, note what the
main section changes to and what it says. Here you are looking for something
relating to the video card. It may or may not be obvious. Mine is not. If
there is, jot down which page it is on. Also note the arrangement of the
subject matter. For instance, mine main screen is divided into two window
pains (sections, columns). the left gives me the subject and options, the
right gives me short explanations of what I highlight. Some of the options
have a triangle to the left of the subject and some have, to the right,
settings enclosed in [ ]. I will not go into these right now, we will get
to them shortly. Continue switch back and forth among the headings till your
comfortable and then lets exit.
I have to go to the exit selection in the main heading. Here I am given
choices, for instance; to save discarding the selections I made and exit, or
save the changes I have made and exit. Lets dwell on the "save discarding
the selections" I have made. This will take me out of the bios back to
continue booting and nothing will be saved. This can also be a life saver if
I made changes I'm not sure about, or can't undo something, etc. At this
time, I suggest you exit with out saving any changes. Note if, by mistake,
you selected "exit saving changes," it will ask you to confirm this, just
hit "NO" and it should take you back to reselect how you want to exit. Keep
going back into the Bios and exiting, until you are comfortable with this
navigation and how to exit. The goal here is familiarity and comfort, not
changing items.
Here at this point, if you feel more comfortable with emailing me or the
group, describing what your main bios page looks like and any questions,
feel free to do so and specifics can be dealt with rather then generalities.
Now that you are comfortable with your ability to know how to exit the Bios,
go into the bios and to one of the selections in the heading. To get to the
items in the body, I just have to hit the down arrow keys, highlighting the
particular item. To go up, hit the up arrow. Practice this a few times till
your comfortable with navigating within the page. Switch to different pages
and do the same thing, noting what is there and then we will proceed on how
to make changes to a subject on the page.
Now to making changes. Select one that is simple such as changing a
language, or entering a pass word or one that has "[Disable]. Here the goal
is to become familiar with the different types and ways that selections are
made and the different methods that will be used to make them. Keep in mind
that your going to change each item back to the original before moving on to
another one. So at each one that will be changed, write down the subject and
its original setting. this is important. Please stay away from the ones
concerning CPU and HD settings. try to pick ones that you feel will not
alter the operation of the puter much if a mistake is made. If that happens
you can go back into the bios and change it back to the original setting you
wrote down, OR you can exit the bios setup without saving the changes.
Ok, now select one and hit enter. Different ones will give you different
ways to make the changes. Some will toggle between, for instance, Disable an
Enable, others will give you a pop up window to scroll through highlighting
each one and to hit enter on the one of your choice, another may give you
and input box, like the password one. Exit without saving any changes.
Here is where I need to stop as we are just about ready to make the
necessary changes for the video card if any. I hope by now, your exploring
has located where the area is for the video card. If you have not read all
the material about the video card and made some initial assessments about
what needs to be change, read the material now.
Feel free to contact the group or email me privately, or we can swap ICQ
numbers and discuss your questions and/or concerns. I do not claim to be an
expect or a tech, just someone who has learned a little and been through it
a few times.
I hope this is of some help to you or someone. Good luck.
Life is what happens in between plans.
Virus free email by Norton's
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith" <jtb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 11:33 AM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Memory and Video Card
>
> I have a HP Pavilion 8396 and I purchased (2) 256 MB of memory
> to bring my computer's RAM up to 640 so I can create digital
> art. I also bought a new Video Card.
>
> Is there anything I should know before besides getting up
> enough courage to open my computer to install? Or should I
> call a tech to do this?
>
> I installed a new 256MB memory in my Gateway Laptop and it was
> easy or was finally after I got it seated properly. It
> wouldn't recognize the chip and after 1 hour with tech support,
> I do know how to go into BIOS and configure it.
>
> Would it be similar in my HP (not where parts would be
> installed) but the BIOS part? This machine has Windows 98.
>
> Judith
>
>
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