if anyone can help i'd appreciate it.

So my story is this, i have a Dell inspiron 530 Quad core (not the slim one). I'm running Windows Vista Basic, with 3gigs of ram and on board video card (Media Accelerator 3100 or something like that) that came with this basic system. Also a stock power supply, and i don't see a power wire for my video card. Do i need it? or is that optional? I only upgraded ram so far, now i'm trying the video card, but running into some problems: here they are

So I bought Nvidia e-GeForce 8800GS.

I first just opened up the computer and plugged it in. When booting up, i don't see anything on the screen and i get this LONG BEEP which never ends. until i turn off the computer.

So after reading a little, i tried disabling the onboard video driver and even uninstalling it compeltely (in device manager that is), turned off the computer and plugged the card back in. I get the same BEEP. I tried both changing the option in BIOS to PCI or Onboard, both of them don't work. I don't have the option for PCI-e in my BIOS.

Please tell me what i should do?
My next thing is maybe i need a power supply that will hold this card? please enlighten me.

Did you plug in the PCIe power? Imo, the Dell PSUs are usually cr@p. You would be better off with a Antec,Thermaltake etc than a Dell PSU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_ [...] spiron_530

So yeah you probably need a new PSU.

The 8800GS needs to get power from your power supply to run. If your stock power supply does not have the proper 6 pin PCIe socket to plug into your graphic card then you have to use an adapter. If you got the 8800GS retail it should have an adapter cable included in the box. It has 2-4 pin molex plug ins on one end and 1-6 pin PCIe socket on the other. Find 2 cables on your power supply that have a molex connector --> oooo
plug the 2 molex connectors from the adapter cable into them. Plug the 6 pin end into your graphic card. Good luck

Like Shadow says you might have to upgrade your power supply. If Toms can run dual 8800GTs in SLI on a 400w tier3 PSU with second rate capacitors and overclock it, you should be ok with your 300w psu in your system.

Did you get a power cable like the one shown above in your video card's accessory pack?
Even using 1 molex 4 pin connector on the power cable might coax the video card into working.
Don't have a free molex connector on your PSU? If you have a free SATA power connector you can get a converter for that arrangement.

http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg [...] 03_2487133

guys all your help is appreciated, thank you very much, but like you said i need this cable, which did not come with my card. I don't see that cable anywhere. I do see an opening on top of the card where it would plug in. Should i just order the cable? or should i replace the Power Supply for something more decent? if so, please recommend some which would handle my card well, but also not to steep as for price..


Thanks again.

As was pointed out above , if you have the Quad equipped I530 you have a 350w psu , that has the 6 pin connector ( it marked P8 )
It's powerful enough that Dell sells it (on the Small Business site, in the Vostro which is the same machine in black ) with an 8800 GT, you should have no problem powering an 8800 GS.

Thank you Dell User, actually the card did come with the wire, which i lost behind the box lol, so now i will try it with the wire and post back

thanx again.

Hey everyone, connected the card with the wire, with no problems, it worked installed the drivers and quickly ran the Vista benchmark. With onboard card i got a rating of 3.3 with this new E-Nvidia, i got 5.9 . My lowest score now is 5.4 which is Memory 3GB

Are there any benchmark tests i can take? for video editing and gaming?


Thanks alot again.

Grats! Cool and thanks for letting us know you got it working.

My dad has an Inspiron 530 (without quadcore) and just purchased an 8800GS. He has no 6 pin P8 connector, nor does he have a 4 pin molex connector anywhere off the power supply. I'm trying to figure out what kind of adapter I can purchase so he can power the card. Maybe something like this?

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/coo [...] litter.jpg

I usually order my cables from monoprice, but I don't think they carry this kind of stuff. Any suggestions and recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Update, I have no idea what kind of connector this is, it's not the standard SATA connector I was expecting. He just send me this image though saying this is the power connector for his hard drive.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527 [...] rd3ol7.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301 [...] rd4ir1.jpg

Looking at that again, I do believe that is just a standard SATA connector, just in a bulkier form that I'm used to seeing.