How to find a compatible graphics card and RAM

I am using an old Compaq Presario PC. I have recently updated from 7 to 10 and find that the needed screen res. 1900x1200 is no longer available. I am using the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter and I doubt it has a graphics card as I cannot find it mentioned. 4 GB ram is nothing and I would like to increase it, as the computer is old and used as a back up, cheap is best. Can anyone suggest a driver or Graphics Card/GPU that they know would work. My computer info should be listed if not I can post it. Alternately, how do you go about finding & matching compatible options for upgrade & where would I look? (there is not much on the internet re. Compaq.

I take it that the PC is your "system two".

I believe that it uses an nVidia nForce 430 chipset (same as MCP61P), with Geforce 6150SE or 6100 integrated graphics. The latest drivers for that from nVidia are for Windows Vista. NVIDIA DRIVERS nForce Driver Version 15.49 WHQL There may be newer ones at the Microsoft Update catalog (http://download.windowsupdate.com/c/...82ac191b90.cab), but they are a .cab file, so you'd need to go to some extra work to install them.

According to Crucial, the maximum memory for the CQ5619F is 4GB, so no further upgrade is possible. Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | hp - compaq | presario cq desktops | Presario CQ5619F | Crucial.com

I don't want to be negative, but that old PC is a poor candidate for Windows 10, and for upgrades. It has an nVidia chipset for an AMD processor. nVidia hasn't supported those for many years.

Thanks for your reply, I found that 4 GBs is the max RAM which is what I have.
The video card slot; 1 PCI Express x16 slot for graphics card 2 PCI Express x1 slots 1PCI. Motherboard NARRA5 v 5.00 & power supply 250W I think.
Is this pretty standard? will compatibility be a problem because the PC being so old??
Chris

Oleg6 said:

Thanks for your reply, I found that 4 GBs is the max RAM which is what I have.
The video card slot; 1 PCI Express x16 slot for graphics card 2 PCI Express x1 slots 1[COLOR=#282829][FONT=apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Helvetica Neue, sans-serif]PCI. Motherboard NARRA5 v 5.00 & power supply 250W I think.
Is this pretty standard? will compatibility be a problem because the PC being so old??
Chris

PCI-E X16 is standard. It's presumably Version 1, but later version cards are supposed to be backwards compatible. There may be an issue with cards that want a UEFI motherboard, but I'm not personally familiar with that.

A 250W PSU is on the low side. Most third-party card makers suggest 300W or more, even for a low-end card. I think that 250W may be OK for any card that doesn't require auxiliary PCI-E power connectors (which won't be present, anyway.)

My suggestion: avoid spending any significant funds on that old, more or less orphaned, PC.

Thanks Bobkn, all useful. A free driver would be the best solution I can think of. LOL

The Compac-Presario was made for Win7, not Win10.
Reinstall Win 7. It's still a good OS (the best in my opinion).

Megahertz said:

The Compac-Presario was made for Win7, not Win10.
Reinstall Win 7. It's still a good OS (the best in my opinion).

To be persnickety, it may have been made for Vista.

(IMHO, 7 is the best Windows choice for a PC that shipped with Vista.)

Thank you Bobkn, the NVIDIA driver run in XP SP3 compatibility mode seems to work fine. I have 1900x1200 res. and it being free is a nice bonus.
However this switch has slowed it down quite a bit I'd say, going back to seven isn't really an option (3rd party apps not working with W 7) so it may not work out in the end but it is up and running in the meantime with the correct res.
Thanks again
Chris