testing

[NeWbiE :-)]

im looking for my next piece to be a graphics card...if theres a short warrenty on the card im affraid i might not get to try it out being as that my pc wont be ready for a couple months...is it safe to test it out in my pc now, store the one im using now somewhere safe then when the pc is ready put the new card in the new pc and the old card back in this pc????...im sure mom will have a heart attack when she finds out i wanna operate on the family pc but...oh well...lol :p

[NeWbiE :-)]

also the hdd i have is 5400 rpm...how willl that work for me?...could i count on keeping it??...and could i keep it now then install another later on without loosing my data?...thanks ;)

[scylla]

For your video card transplants, don't worry. It's only the driver and settings you install on your moms computer that you have to worry about. I switch my best graphics card between 2 computers rather than buy a good one for both, and I've never had more than a quick driver clean and reboot to set things back to normal. B.T.W. The 30 day thing your worried about is probably just for rma to your retailer. Decent manufacturers usually give at least 1 year on a warranty.

[scylla]

Per your hdd, most hard drives run at 7200 rpm, and people seem to say thats about the lowest acceptable for good performance. Though I see advertisements for above 10,000 rpm, I'm really curious about their noise level.

[saphalline]

For your new vid card, you'll probably be getting an AGP 8x one. Whether or not this will work in your mom's current computer depends entirely on what hardware she has! For instance, if her computer has no AGP slot, your new vid card obviously won't work! Or if her AGP slot is an older version, putting your new vid card in there might fry it, or her mobo, or both! AGP is funny that way. In any case, I wouldn't try it unless you can find more info about her specific hardware.

The biggest roadblock to your vid card though is the timeline! Video cards are extremely price sensitive, and in fact there is no computer technology that moves faster! If you must space out your buying of parts, I highly recommend that you leave the vid card for last! You could very well spend $150 on a vid card now, only to find that in say 2 months when your computer is ready, there's an even better card out for $120! This is also true for CPU's. Your CPU should be bought with your vid card, or at least make it your second-to-the-last purchase. ;)

For the hard drive you have, yeah it's a bit slow. However, did you get a great deal on it? :p You will most likely want a better hard drive at some point in time, but upgrading hard drives can be a bit tricky. There are ways of copying everything on one hard drive over to another, but it can be quite a chore! It might be a good idea to take that hard drive back and upgrade to one with a 7200rpm speed. The performance boost from that alone is well worth it! And it will increase the time before you need to upgrade your hard drive again. Or if you do like a lot of us like to do and just keep adding hard drives to your computer. :p I have 120GB one right now, and I'm looking to add a larger one for storage very shortly, and yet another one down the road. Remember, you can have as many drives in your system as you have drive connectors on your mobo! :cool: Oh, and um... you need to have enough drive bays in your case, too... :rolleyes: