Upgrading your Video Card

1. First you have to remove the old video card. Unplug the monitor and any
   other connectors from the back of the video card. Then take the case off and
   find the video card. If you don’t know which one is the video card, find the
   one the monitor plugs into. That’s it. Unscrew the screw that fastens it to
   the computer. Save the screw. Then gently pull the card from its slot. It
   may be easier to rock the card back and forth a little to pry it loose, but
   don’t break the slot (if I really need to say that).

2. If you have a separate video card, you can skip this step. This applies to
   you guys with integrated video circuitry on your motherboard. Some computers
   don’t have a video card, but instead the monitor plugs into the motherboard.
   In this case, you must disable this circuitry before installing a separate
   card. You may need your motherboard’s manual for this one, but most of them
   have a small switch or jumper to flip that disables this. 

3. Next, pick the slot you are going to use for the card, and remove the
   corresponding slot insert from the back of the computer.

4. Now you can insert the new card. Move any cables out of the way. Position
   the card over the slot, with the monitor connection facing the back of the
   computer. Line up the pins on the card with the slot. Then push down. It may
   help to insert one side of the card first, then the other. Don’t be afraid
   to push. It sometimes takes some force to get the card in. Just use your own
   judgment. Don’t break anything.

5. Screw that screw you saved down into place to secure the card. The screw
   just needs to be snug. You don’t want to strip it.

6. Put the case back on, plug everything back in. If your card comes with any
   external parts, like the Matrox G400 video card does, connect this stuff
   now.

7. Turn the system on. Hopefully you see the boot screen. That means it
   works. When you go into Windows, it should automatically detect the new
   hardware and ask for drivers.
   Don’t let Windows install stock drivers. Always click "Have Disk"
   and use the manufacturer provided drivers.

8. Go through the installation routine and install all the drivers according
   to the software prompts.

9. Optional: After everything is done and working, you probably won’t want to
   mess with it. But, you may want to eventually go to the manufacturer web
   site and download the latest video drivers for your card. Since video
   drivers are so key to the system, buggy ones can cause your system to do
   many strange things from wavy lines to random reboots

Upgrading to SLI Video Cards

1. First things first, make sure you know whether your video card supports scan-line interleave. I would suggest going to the website of the manufacturer of your video card to find out for sure. An example of one of the most famous cards to do this is the Voodoo2.
2. After ensuring the card is SLI compatible, make note of the make and model of it, head out to the store (or eBay) and get a duplicate card. You now should have two of the same 3D accelerator card.
3. Open the case of your computer, and for safety’s sake, make sure you are grounded from this point forward (Important point: the computer should be off at this point). As a quick fix to not wearing a grounding wristband, just rub the power supply a bit, as that should discharge any excess nasty static.
4. Now find the 3D accelerator. It should be the one connected to your monitor. Make sure there is a free slot adjacent to it (not required, but VERY helpful).
5. Find the spot you want to stick your new card. Once you have located it, notice the interface slot on the back of the computer that lines up with the slot you want to stick your card into. This is where the ports on the card will stick out. It should be blocked right now by a little slab of metal. What you want to do is remove it. There should be a screw holding it into place. Just remove that screw, and pull out the little slab of metal (you can save the slabs of metal and make sculptures later if you do a lot of upgrading).
6. Take care in removing your new card from its static protective doggie bag, and do a cursory look over it for anything that could be wrong. 99% of the time you won’t find anything out of place, so just be on the lookout for if your card is broken in half or whatnot (if so, go back to the store and complain). Take the card by the edges and position it in the slot. Use firm and uniform force in inserting it into the slot.
7. Now you can take the spare screw you have and insert it back where it came from. This should secure the card in place.
8. (Less important note: If there was no free slot near to your existing 3D accelerator card, you can use the same process to reorganize the locations of cards inside the case. To remove a card, just pull it straight out of its slot carefully.)
9. Now that the other card is in place, you must connect the two; otherwise, your computer will just assume that you have two 3D accelerators for no real reason. Along with the video card, there should be an SLI cable. Generally, the cable is about two or three inches long. On the cards themselves, there should be a set of pins which match the holes on the SLI cable. Line up the pins with the holes on the cable, and plug it in to both cards.
10. If you had just a 3D accelerator to start with, you now have three video cards in your system: your 2D card, and two 3D cards. If the model you were upping to SLI was a 2D/3D card, you just have two of them. In either case, you will want to plug in the monitor to the card you just installed, plug the second port of the card you just installed to the monitor port on the old card, and keep the second port of the old card attached to the monitor port on the 2D card. This makes the back of your computer look like a mess, and the inside is just a tad more cluttered.
11. When you have finished this, all the hardware changes are complete, and you can put the case cover back on the computer. The only thing that remains is the driver updates.
12. Boot your PC. Once booted, insert the driver install CD for the card you bought, and start the driver install process. The installer should automatically figure out that you have set up the system as SLI. If it doesn’t, you will have to configure the SLI mode via the control panel later. It will probably want a reboot now.
13. Congrats.
    (This next step isn’t always necessary, it depends on what type of 3D accelerator you have).
14. After rebooting, go to the control panel, and open the preferences for the video card. Find the checkbox for SLI (this should be noted in the installation manual for the card itself if it is necessary to find and check it) and check it. Congratulations, you now have an SLI 3D accelerated system.
15. Newer video cards, like the Voodoo5, often don’t give you the option of SLI mode. This is because the SLI mode is already present on the card itself. Two or more acceleration engines are on the card, running in parallel. This alleviates the problem of having to constantly increase the speed of a single engine, as you have multiple engines running simultaneously. This also increases their price, if you haven’t noticed.

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