Inspiron 530: Can I upgrade it?

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
My parents' computer is having an issue where the screen is very messed up (lines, fuzziness) and then a blue screen appears and the PC either restarts or just goes dark.

My guess is the graphics card, since the graphics are messed up but there is also the blue screen that seems to indicate something more than just a monitor problem.

My question is, am I able to replace the graphics card on this system myself, or is it all proprietary hardware that I won't be able to work with?

(Any other thoughts on this issue would be appreciated too. The system no longer turns on after it gets to a certain point past loading Windows (but never seems to boot into Windows). It also doesn't always make it that far before crashing too. I considered it might be the HDD, or just the Windows installation, but because of the monitor issues, I'm inclined to think graphics card.)

Thanks.
 
As long as you have a PCIe-X16 slot on the motherboard you can install any PCI express graphics card.

However your other symptoms seem to indicate something more serious. Could also have a bad ahrd drive or corrupt installation of Windows.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
As long as you have a PCIe-X16 slot on the motherboard you can install any PCI express graphics card.

However your other symptoms seem to indicate something more serious. Could also have a bad ahrd drive or corrupt installation of Windows.
Click to expand...

Yes, I considered those options. The easiest solution to try would be reinstalling Windows, but it risks losing everything on the hard drive without knowing for sure that that is the problem.

If it's the hard drive itself, why would it do what it's doing to the screen?
 
If you're getting lines and crap, it's definitely the video card. But with Windows not completely loading, it can also be a bad hard drive (at the same time).

Your best bet would be to test the hard drive (via something like Hiren's Boot CD, and using the manufacturer diagnostic built into that) and if the hard drive passes, buy a new video card and reinstall Windows (after backing up any necessary data via something like PartedMagic [also built into Hirens]).

If the hard drive is bad, it's up to you if you wanna drop money on a video card AND a hard drive.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
If you're getting lines and crap, it's definitely the video card. But with Windows not completely loading, it can also be a bad hard drive (at the same time).

Your best bet would be to test the hard drive (via something like Hiren's Boot CD, and using the manufacturer diagnostic built into that) and if the hard drive passes, buy a new video card and reinstall Windows (after backing up any necessary data via something like PartedMagic [also built into Hirens]).

If the hard drive is bad, it's up to you if you wanna drop money on a video card AND a hard drive.
Click to expand...

Wow, a ton of stuff on Hiren's. What would I use to check the HDD?
 
Determine what the manufacturer of the HDD is and choose that manufacturers diagnostic utility from the Hard Disk tools.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
Determine what the manufacturer of the HDD is and choose that manufacturers diagnostic utility from the Hard Disk tools.
Click to expand...

Well, it's from Dell I assume. It's listed as:

Hard Drive, 500G, S2, 7.2K, 16M SGT-MOOSE

I don't see any utilities for that, or I don't know what to look for.
 
Look at the hard drive and it will tell you what the brand is. Most likely a seagate or western digital.
 
johnb35 said:
Look at the hard drive and it will tell you what the brand is. Most likely a seagate or western digital.
Click to expand...

Thanks. The thing I pasted above actually has "SGT" in it, which I missed the first time.

So when I boot from this disc, how do I run this utility? Will there be an interface that I can choose it from? I don't see instructions on the Hiren's BootCD homepage.
 
So we are assuming its a seagate drive? When it loads you want to load hard drive tools and then find seatools and run an extended test.
 
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