How To Install a New PCI-Express Video Card

Revisions:
9-10-11: Initial release.

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About two weeks ago, I had my 9800GT video card died on me, well, more specifically, the fan died on me. I checked the serial number on the video card, and I figured out that the company that made the video card, GalaxyTech, has a two year warranty, and I just so happened to be one month away from the two year warranty period from expiring.

So what did I do? I sent in the RMA, and I got my video card fixed and replaced, and rather just install it, I thought it would be beneficial to show you guys how to install a video card into your PC.

The bottom line is most video cards these days are PCI-Express. All you need to know from that is if your PC is new within the last 5 years or so, for sure it will have a PCI-Express video card slot on your motherboard. Now you can go to your local computer store, or Newgg.com or any online video card seller and be assured that the graphics card you are purchasing will fit into your PC.

However, the caveat is to ensure that your PC meets the requirements of the video card such as a beefier power supply, or a more powerful CPU. It does not good to get the latest and greatest video card if your CPU is as slow as molasses. Your games are not going to run any faster if you got a hot new video card, and all the rest of the computer components are from 2003. 😛

Overall, installation is simple. You take off the computer case, take off the end bracket where the video card goes, and just plug in the video card into the PCI-Express slot. Some video cards require additional power plug, so you got to connect your power supply molex connector to that video card. If you have small computer case, then you got to make sure that the new video card is going to fit, because some video cards can be quite long.

For a quick video tutorial on all of this, see my video below. Any questions, leave a comment!