First time upgrading a computer

Hello I'm new here. So my dad bought himself a new computer a while back and his "old" dell inspiron 530 is just sitting upstairs. I thought I could ask for it for christmas and do some upgrades but i'm really not sure what it is compatible with (ya i'm totally new at this) windows xp professional 2002 service pack 3. intel core 2 quad 2.4 ghz and 3.00 gb of ram.
All I was planning on upgrading was the graphics card and the ram. I have no idea how much ram I can put on this computer or if the graphics cards that im looking at are compatible. How can I find these things out?

 

No reason to upgrade the CPU or the RAM as those components are just fine as they are. Where it gets problematic is when upgrading to a higher powered graphics card and your power supply is inadequate. Which video card are you looking at and what's your make/model of your current power supply, you will have to open the case.

 

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Performa...RNBM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1319572456&sr=8-3

Well aren't you helpful. Theres the graphics card I was looking at. I couldn't find the make and model of the power supply but it is 350w. After running the specs with that card through a power supply calculator it seems like thats the minimum I would want so I was thinking about a 400w power supply. My biggest concern then is if my computer can run that graphics card.

 

Your computer can run that card easily except for the power supply, no need for any more info on that, it don't have the oomph! I'd personally get as much video card as you can afford if you play games and get the appropriate power supply. I'd go for the GTX 460 personally.

I'd say, to be safe, to have a quality 450W with a PCI-E 6 pin connector.

 

is this thing quality? It's got the 6 pin connector. Thanks for all the help.

http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master...YPHK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319574575&sr=8-1

 

Yup, good enough man though I like Corsair better but that's my personal preference. You should be just fine. Enjoy.

 

Something more I need to get sorted out! I'm planning on getting a new screen for this computer to replace the 10 year old 18 inch square...thing... its got now. The graphics card that i'll be putting in has mini hdmi out so is there any reason why I shouldn't just get myself a nice lcd tv to use as the monitor instead of paying extra for a computer monitor? I cant quite figure out why the same size lcd monitor is more than the tv.

 

Only thing you have to know is that a TV will only give you 1080 vs a monitor that can go to 1920 lines or more, depending on your video card. Your computers display would really suck in this scenario.You had good use out of that CRT, 10 years is impressive.

 

Woo troubleshooting :-o

When I turn the computer on the fans get really loud for a few seconds, then it turns off. then it turns on and then back off. So the computer goes on and off 3 times before starting and then after it shows the dell logo I get "diskette drive 0 seek failure." I can bypass this and the computer runs just fine but I still want to fix them so what can I do? I want make sure this thing runs perfect before I invest a bit of money into it :-D

Also, I need to replace the main hard drive (because my dad wants his hard drive), will that effect any of this? what does it effect (do I have to re install the os or anything like that?)

 

Go into BIOS and disable the 3 1/4 inch diskette for starters. That's an old machine but still usable. If your dad wants his HDD back then you'll have to buy a new one and reinstall your OS, if you have the disks and the license.

 

how does one get into the BIOS?

 

Tap the F8 key continuously when rebooting to get in there.

 

hmm... the computer just clicks when I press f8 during startup..

 

Does that mean a sound? Clicking hard drives are dying or dead.

 

Yes there is an actual clicking noise coming from the tower when I press f8. So what can I do with that?

 

just switched the hard drive out to see if that would fix anything and I still got the diskette drive failure. And this time as soon as windows started loading I got a blue screen. And the computer still turns on and off several times before starting.

 

No it does not have a floppy drive and it never has :confused

 

If I put in a new hard drive that works on other computers but made this one blue screen, is there any way to reset everything to factory defaults? I would do this with the other hard drive except my dad needs all of the stuff on it. Im perfectly fine with wiping the other drive if it fixes my problem.