Arch Linux

waspy

Member

From: Sagittarius A*

Registered: 2010-12-07

Posts: 40

[SOLVED] Installing new graphics card

Howdy,
Been a while since I posted on the forums. In any case, long story short, my old graphics card "exploded" rendering it useless. So now i have a new card on the way, and I just have some simple questions.
What would I need to do once it arrives? Do i boot up my computer without any graphics card, and remove old drivers via the command line? or would i insert the new card, boot up and remove drivers?

My old card was a GeForce 9600 GT (yes, ancient i know..) and my new card is a GeForce GT640 2GB.
I believe the drivers i had installed for my old card was the 'nvidia' driver from the official repos. Will this same driver work for my new card or will i need a different driver? (Please don't link the wiki as i've obviously read it).
The purpose of this thread is to simply save myself headaches in case i happen to install some bad or conflicting drivers and mess up my whole system or something.
I have faith there's some helpful person who will help me out here and not simply replying with 'RTFM'.

Appreciate any help,
- Waspy

Last edited by waspy (2013-08-05 18:19:00)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,734

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Installing new graphics card

Same driver so should be no issue unless you setup custom stuff in xorg.conf or the like.

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AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

ozar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2005-02-18

Posts: 1,686

Re: [SOLVED] Installing new graphics card

Hello, waspy

I'm in agreement with graysky.

Every time I've replaced a video card that uses the same video driver, the box fires right up and works with no problems whatsoever.  Post back if you should run into any issues.

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oz

waspy

Member

From: Sagittarius A*

Registered: 2010-12-07

Posts: 40

Re: [SOLVED] Installing new graphics card

Thank you for your quick replies!
New card seems to work fine. So all good. However.. I realized that with a new graphics card it would be a shame not to put it to use. But here's where I ran into a dilemma.. I've come to LOVE Arch, but I only have one harddrive (with limited space), and so dual booting isn't an option.
And with that realization, I've decided to downgrade.. to Windows 7 from Arch. Yes, such unspeakable heresy but I see no other option .
However I will keep Arch on my laptop of course.
In the future when I get more harddrives, and can propely dual boot, then Arch is returning as my main booting choice. Slightly Off Topic there, i know. In any case, thank you for your help gentlemen.