Introduction Installation of a video card can be done in a couple of different ways depending on your particular situation. I will describe in detail the steps involved for both procedures. My goal is to make the task as easy as possible for the beginner who sometimes gets a little lost the first time they attempt this. This procedure can be done very easily in a just a few minutes. You will need a meager amount of tools and a flat clean area to work in before attempting this project. Have everything for the project out and ready to go as this will help eliminate wasted time looking for what you need. Always make sure to ground yourself out by first touching the case or something metal before touching the internal parts of your system so you do not short out your system or your new video card by static electricity. Tools needed Phillips Screwdriver Case Screw Preparation Make sure your motherboard supports your particular video card. Look here for different AGP types. Using a 3.3V card in a 1.5V only system can result in a fried motherboard. Have all your drivers downloaded or on CD ready to install. WinZip is a handy tool for decompressing files and is commonly used with drivers available on the net. You can download this handy tool at www.winzip.com. New System or Fresh OS Install If you are doing a fresh OS install or building a new PC you would first put the card in the AGP slot of the computer as seen below. Start the system and proceed to install your OS and then after the primary OS installation is finished to go into the systems Device Manager to install the video card drivers. This can be done by right-clicking on the My Computer icon (1), then left-clicking on Properties(2). Then left-clicking on the Hardware tab (3), then left click the Device Manager button (4). You will then see the display adapter icon (5) and you need to left-click on it. Next double left-click on the display icon (6). Find the Drivers tab (7), left click on it, and direct the system load the driver off the CD or wherever you have the drivers stored in your system. Some video cards come with their own drivers on an included CD that can be used to install the card as well but many times the drivers tend to be a bit dated so I prefer to use the drivers off the appropriate chipsets home website as these are the most current available to the public. If using a VIA-chipset motherboard, download the latest drivers from their Web site www.viatech.com prior to installing the video drivers. This will insure a more stable system environment and a higher performance output with less glitches or problems after the drivers are installed. The reason for this is the 4 in 1 drivers add additional drivers that help enhance system performance and take advantage of your hardware chipset options. For NVIDIA based cards I use the Detonator unified drivers that I downloaded off the NVIDIA Web site at www.nvidia.com. For ATI based cards I use the reference drivers located on the ATI home site that can be downloaded at www.ati.com. Upgrading Upgrading is a little different than with a new system. For you to install the video card in an already running and functioning system you must first remove the present cards drivers by going into the control panel which can be located by double clicking on the my computer icon and can be seen in the lower left corner (1). Double click on the add/remove software icon (2), this will take you into window that shows all of your installed drivers. Find your current video drivers tab and then left click on the change/remove button (3). This will remove your old display drivers, which is important to insure there are no driver conflicts when installing your new drivers. For users of Windows OS 95-98-ME before restarting go into the Display Drivers tab as described before, double click on your previous video card tab. Then click on the update driver's tab. Choose Show Me a List, and then choose the Standard Display Adapter setting and click okay after this is done you will be prompted to again restart the system. For people running Windows XP you can skip this step altogether. Shut the system down open up your case and remove your old video card, then put in the new one securing it with a case screw and close the system back up. Restart your system, and when entering Windows you will be asked for the driver. Direct your system to where you have the drivers located or unzipped, install them, and then restart your system. If you want you can skip the drivers search when Windows asks for it and just use the CD that is included with your card to install the drivers instead. To change the settings of your new video card right click anywhere on the screen and then left click on properties (1). This will bring you to the main display properties screen. Left click on the Settings tab (2) to change your resolution and color depth. To change your monitor refresh rates or change your advanced video setting click on the advanced setting tab (3). You will then see an entire list of video display options for fine-tuning both your monitor and video settings (4). Well that wraps that project up I hope this helped you with the task of installing your video card. We have many other useful guides located in our How To section to help you with your computer needs. If you have any questions you can use our great forums or email me directly if you need to. Thanks for visiting the site, until later.