Can I get my desktop's graphics card working again/replaced? AX3950-EB10P

I have an AX3950-EB10P with an INTEL GMA HD graphics card for which I cannot install a driver after having to reinstall the OS due to a hard drive crash. No driver I've found anywhere works, and so I'm stuck with the default vga graphics which do not offer usable resolutions etc. for watching video (that's basically all this computer does - it runs a tv, and then acts as storage). The one driver I was able to find that seemed to be accepted by the computer just caused a black screen which was then difficult to back out of (because of the black screen, obviously). I know this is an older machine (it is upgraded from W7 to W10 now since the rebuild), but can I still get from somewhere a driver for it? Failing that, is it possible to upgrade/change the vid card for this? I don't know much about it, but it looks as though it might be part of the circuit board on this model?

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billsey

So the Aspire X3950 came out back in the Windows 7 era and I believe uses a legacy BIOS, not UEFI. That means most of the new graphics cards will not work with it. Older ones should though, and if nothing else they'll be cheaper.

Do some Googling and see what is available for legacy. You have a PCIe x16 slot for the GPU, the one closest to the edge of the board. If you put a GPU card there the onboard video will be automatically disabled by the BIOS and it will use the new card instead.

vitaminj

Thanks for responding. So do you figure I'm making the right assumption that the card that's currently in there is fried because it won't accept a driver, or is there a legacy driver option that I should be looking for to see if my current hardware is in fact good? I wasn't able to find anything when I was setting it up but that could very well be because I don't know what to look for and how to find it.

billsey

I believe that you don't actually have a card. The Intel HD series are built into the chipsets and the older ones just do not have drivers developed for the newer OSes. They typically provide new driver support for some number of years, but you are likely past that. You might be able to pull down a driver for Windows 7 64bit and install it in compatibility mode to continue using it in the W10 era though. I don't know if you have tried that yet... Your Aspire X3950 uses the Intel P55 Express chipset and you might have to look up which GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) version that is.

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