Installing or Upgrading a Graphics Card

A graphics card is the second most common desktop upgrade after storage. It is also the one that most often ends with a black screen, almost always because of a power connector or a driver left behind.

Step 1 — Check three numbers before buying

1. Physical length — measure from the rear bracket to the front of the case, and allow clearance for the fan shroud.
2. Power connectors — modern cards need 6-pin, 8-pin or 12VHPWR leads from the supply. Adapters exist but a card that needs a connector your supply does not have is a warning about the supply, not an inconvenience.
3. Slot — nearly everything is PCIe x16 and will fit, but a card two slots thick will cover the slot below it.

Step 2 — Prepare the software first

Uninstall the existing graphics driver with the manufacturer's clean-up tool, or use DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in safe mode. This is not optional when moving between AMD and Nvidia — leftover driver files are the usual cause of stutter and random crashes after a swap.

Step 3 — Fit it

1. Power off, unplug, and hold the power button for five seconds.
2. Remove the side panel and take out the old card — press the retaining latch at the end of the slot before pulling. Forgetting this latch is how people break motherboards.
3. Fit the new card into the top x16 slot (it is usually the fastest), pressing until the latch clicks.
4. Screw the bracket down and connect the power leads until they click. A partially seated 8-pin behaves exactly like a dead card.

Step 4 — First boot

Connect the monitor to the new card's outputs, not the motherboard's. If the board has integrated graphics it may prefer its own output, so this single mistake causes a lot of unnecessary panic.

If you get no display: reseat the card, check the power connectors, and clear CMOS. If it still fails, try the card in another slot or another machine.

Step 5 — Drivers and verification

Install the current driver from AMD, Nvidia or Intel — the official download, not a driver-pack site. Then check it is actually running: Task Manager → Performance → GPU should name the card, and the driver version should match what you just installed.

Watch temperatures for the first twenty minutes under load. Above about 85°C on a modern card suggests an airflow problem rather than a card problem, and is worth solving before summer.