Need help with a Slim PC

[Dragonus45]

So i might be getting a free Dell Inspiron 545s soon, not my first personal choice, but it is free, and its a great machine except for one frustrating detail. The graphics card wont run Dawn of War 2 or any other of my Favorite games. Now i know my way around the hardware for a normal sized pc but im lost on a slimmer model. Could anyone tell me where to look for a guide on adding stuff to it or point me towards a card that would fit.

[thubby]

So i might be getting a free Dell Inspiron 545s soon, not my first personal choice, but it is free, and its a great machine except for one frustrating detail. The graphics card wont run Dawn of War 2 or any other of my Favorite games. Now i know my way around the hardware for a normal sized pc but im lost on a slimmer model. Could anyone tell me where to look for a guide on adding stuff to it or point me towards a card that would fit.

if it's a dell you need dell parts, the dell site will tell you what dell parts go with your dell computer.

did i mention it's a dell :smallfurious:

[Archonic Energy]

So i might be getting a free Dell Inspiron 545s soon, not my first personal choice, but it is free, and its a great machine except for one frustrating detail. The graphics card wont run Dawn of War 2 or any other of my Favorite games. Now i know my way around the hardware for a normal sized pc but im lost on a slimmer model. Could anyone tell me where to look for a guide on adding stuff to it or point me towards a card that would fit.

first question: is the graphics card intergrated into the motherboard?
if yes: sorry you'll need an USB external graphics card.
if no: you'll have to find the connection type, i hae been able to upgrade the Graphics card on my Laptop but that was because it has a dedicated graphics card, without that i wouldn't have been able to do it.

[Dragonus45]

Its not integrated, that i know of, the issue is that i have no experience on the inside of a slim case. You know what i mean, one of those tiny desktops with no room inside. Is there any appreciable loss of efficiency with a usb card? I had never even heard of them before.

[KuReshtin]

If it's the same specs that I found by doing a quick search for an Inspiron 545s, then this is what is inside the machine:



Graphics Controller
Graphics Processor / Vendor Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 .Video Memory 256 MB


That means that it comes with an integrated graphics card that is on the motherboard and will not be upgradable. Well, at least not that graphics card.

However, it does have a PCI-Ex16 slot on the motherboard where you could install another graphics card, as long as you find one that will fit in the case.
Best to check with Dell Support, though. They will know what you'll need to upgrade the machine.

[Erloas]

Most motherboards have a PCI-E x16 slot even if they have integrated graphics as well (mostly because every chipset has those lanes and not much else to use them for).

So you should be able to find a slim card, install it, and disable the onboard option. However most slim graphics cards aren't that powerful, but they will do better then integrated and should run DoW2 fine. The only other issue you might run into is the fact that most pre-built machines have power supplies just large enough to run them so you might have to replace the power supply to run a better graphics card. Its hard to say for sure though because a lot of the slim cards are going to be fairly low powered and their stock power supplies might be bigger then some other brands use.

Newegg has a few listed. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1014655227&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=)

[Dragonus45]

Thanks, if i do end up needing to invest in a better power supply when does it become cheaper to just skip upgrading the free pc and getting one better suited to gaming to begin with.

[Erloas]

Assume all of the specs on the CNet review are right (assuming they haven't upgraded the hardware from years past but used the same model number), there really isn't any good reason to replace most of the system. It has a very solid dual core processor and plenty of RAM. The graphics card is really the only shortfall of the system.

I have only glanced at the low profile cards and not looked too closely. If they are that much more expensive then the full sized cards it might be worth just buying a cheap mid tower case and moving everything there and getting a standard size graphics card. Especially if the power supply needs to be changed since the mini cases don't generally hold normal ATX power supplies (ie standard sized)

You loose the ability to overclock with a locked dell motherboard, but thats about it.

The review showed the system using about 85W of power under load, so as long as the power supply is in the 300-350W range you should be fine with mid-low range graphics card. Though you might not know for sure without putting the card in and seeing if it still boots up. A lot of the cards recommend 400W minimum, but there are a lot of reasons for that minimum recommendation that mostly have to do with the quality of the power supply more then how much power the card actually uses.