76 JANUARY2021|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE395
HOWTOFITAGRAPHICSCARD
I
fyou want to playgamesoryou havea
CPU that doesn’t have integrated
graphics,you’ll need to fitagraphics card.
If youstood your case up to fityour PSU,you
should lay it flat again to fit agraphics card.
REMOVEBLANKINGPLATES
Locate thetop-most PCI-Ex16 slot(the long
one), andunscrew andremove the rear
blanking plates, remembering to keep the
screws. If youhaveasingle-heightcard, you
need only remove the oneblankingplate
that’sinline with the slot. If youhavea
dual-heightcard, you’ll also need to remove
the blanking platebelow. 1
INSERTCARDINTOTHESLOT
Lineupthe PCI-E x16 connector on your
graphics card with the slot on your
motherboard.Providing equal pressure
along the length of the card,firmlypush
the card into placeuntil it clicksintoposition.
Acorrect fit should see the retainingclip at
the end of the PCI-E x16 slotclickintoplace.
If youcan still see some of thegraphics
card’s connector, pushdownagain.
Take the screws that youkeptfrom
before and put them throughthe graphics
card’s retaining bracket andback into the
case. Youmay havetopushthe graphics
card up andtowardsthe case slightly to
do this.Oncethe screwsare in place,
the card should notwobbleand the
graphics card outputs should be clearly
visible at the rear of the case. 2
CONNECTPCI-EPOWER
Fromyour PSU,you need to connect the
powertothe graphics card,althougha
minority of budgetcards don’t needthis.
Check the number of poweradaptors on
the back of the card.Thereare twotypes
of PCI-E connector:six-pin and eight-pin.
Most PSU six-pin PCI powerconnectorscan
be converted to eight-pin by pushing in the
spare, dangling two-pin connector. PCI-E
connectorscan only go in one wayand
have aretaining clip to hold theminplace.
When this clipclicks into place,you know
you’ve done the jobproperly. 3
TOP TIP
Notquiteliningupthecard
properlyisthebiggest
problemtoavoidasyour
PCwillturnon,butyouw
on’tgeta
picture.Somecardsare
fiddlytofit,
butsomeextrapressure
alongtheir
lengthcanpushthemint
oplace.
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