Installing a new video card

I picked up an ATI Radeon Mobility X1400 card for my Dell laptop for a song. As you know, Dell is not tech-friendly. I'm not helpless but I'm no tech either and I'm a bit hesitant about installing the blasted thing myself without some guidance. Local shop wants $120 to install, not worth it in my opinion. Does anyone have access to a service manual or some sort of help? Or is there anyone in the Las Vegas NV area who would be willing to help out a fellow geeker for a case or bottle of their favorite beverage? ANY AND ALL ADVICE is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

 

whats the model of your laptop, they'll probably need to know that much in order to find a manual for it.

 

Ya, laptop # needed. Just to make sure that your X1400 fits, prolly does fit but I leave nothing to chance.

 

Oops, sorry, it's an Inspiron E1505. I believe the specs are same as or close to an Inspiron 6400. Thanks!

 

This may help you out - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins6400/en/index.htm

 

Great advice guided me through and I got the card installed and eveerything put back together so it works, hallelujah. Now I've got screen flickering. According to Dell the old X1300 and the new X1400 card use the same driver but I've gotta think it's a driver issue. Any advice?

 

I'd try the driver from AMD/ATI. LINK
You'll have to pick your OS and go from there. You may want to go into Safe Mode to delete driver (F8 at boot). Reboot and install new driver from regular boot.

 

Did you uninstall the old drivers before upgrading?

If not, repeatedly press F8 whilst the laptop is booting, just before the windows startup screen pops up, and select safe mode from the supplied list. This will boot without the graphics drivers and you can uninstall them. This will cause the computer to fall back on the default microsoft ones, but once you reboot into normal mode, you can download and install the correct drivers from ATI.

 

I've tried safe mode and used Driver Sweep to clear the old drivers out. ATI keeps telling me it doesn't have a driver compatible with my system. Maybe that's because I have a 2005 version of XP Media Center. Do I need to upgrade the OS? I suppose I could also start with the oldest ATI driver and try to upgrade one version at a time but I'm getting pretty frustrated so I don't know if I have the patience. Dell says the X1300 and X1400 use the same driver so I can't figure out why I get the flicker on the new card. Thanks for any assistance!

 

Just use the most recent XP driver. That should work as I think ATI provide drivers for a whole "series" of cards.