can't get y splitter to work on 2 monitors

That's a brilliant idea AddRAM! Fortunately I haven't thrown the old box away yet as I planned to smash the hard drive with a hammer first! I'll give it a go! thank you!

45%x

Why does everything have to be difficult?

Ok. Apparently it's been a LONG while since I cracked open a PC. My brand new Dell Inspiron 3650 only has 1 card slot! When did this happen? I remember there typically being 4-6 available. I'm guessing the USB ports replace the old card slots? Anyway, I only need one so I'm good. I've installed the old graphics card into the new machine.

Next, I hook up the old splitter to the old graphics card (on my new pc) and connect the previously used monitors. Turn on the pc. I got nothing. No video. So I pull one of the monitors off of the splitter and plug it in to the old vga port. Nothing. I then turn off the pc and turn on again. Interestingly, I DO get video on one pc and it has a cool graphic and tells me that it detects I have a monitor plugged in to the old vga port and that I should unplug it and plug it in to the graphics card and reboot. Ok. So I do that and... nothing. No video.

I kind of feel like it needs to have a device driver downloaded for this new graphics board but how can I interface with the pc to download it if I don't have any video? Also, if I uninstall the board and use the regular vga port then how would the OS check to see what device driver is needed if the board isn't installed any more?

Harummpf. What should I next do?

Thanks

My brand new Dell Inspiron 3650 only has 1 card slot! When did this happen?

Welcome to the technology march! One video slot became popular with motherboards having a single AGP slot which morphed into one PCIe X16 slot. PCIe = PCI Express
PCIe boards may also have one or two PCIe X1 or X4 slots for other cards. And there's exceptions such as boards with two PCIe X16 slots. The older PCI slots have been included to accommodate the older PCI cards. Basically, check the specs of any motherboard involved.