- Jan 1, 2014
- 184
- 8
- 18,595
Hi guys 
... I should start out by saying my friend is tight on money and this is the best solution I can come up with but by all means feel free to tell me how stupid I am (something I freely admit 
) and what I can do better ... but budget is $85 plus tax at most for a video card for said friend. That and darn video cards are selling out like hotcakes right now ! So if you recommend a better video card for the price I'll gladly look at it but from what I'm seeing there's a good chance it's already sold out (but I'll take note of it though in case it comes back into stock).
My friend has a Lenovo Erazer X315 desktop PC, she took it to a computer repair shop who basically told her the PC is hopeless .. but when you take the video card out of it the PC runs fine (pretty sure processor is one of those types with the integrated graphics type thing going on) .. PC was purchased probably 5 years ago so well past the warranty period.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/erazer/x-series/x315/
(there's a "tech specs" link on the website above)
She'd really like to start using the PC to game again though... I was looking at installing this video card
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/gigaby...0-graphics-card-black/6409183.p?skuId=6409183
(but if that link does not work it's the " GIGABYTE - NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card - Black Model: GV-N1030D5-2GL "
It needs a 300 watt power supply, the PC comes with a 280 watt power supply ... amazon reviews indicate that's close enough but to be on the safe side I'd like to install the unused Corsair CX 430 watt power supply I have lying around
https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Power-Supply-Units/CX-SERIES/p/CP-9020046-NA
which I know requires a power supply adapter cable so I got this from amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Cotchear-Pow...ly+24+to+14+pin+adapter&qid=1610231447&sr=8-5
So I guess my first question is - would that setup work? Would the video card be compatible with the motherboard and would that power supply work in the PC long as the power supply adapter cable does it's job properly?
My second question is - how does my new video card install compare to the old (probably defective) video card that was inside the PC? .. I'm not 100 percent sure (even looking at the video card - will attach a picture - I'm not sure what the model number is on it but the lenovo product listing for the Erazer X315 says it's a " AMD Radeon R9 M360 2GB " ) ... I really don't have a choice because that's all my friend can afford for a video card ($85 from Best Buy plus tax and all the other video cards in that price range are sold out). I have a feeling the AMD Radeon R9 was better.
Third question... I'd like to sacrifice the CD/DVD writer (just take it out of the PC completely) and have three sata hard drives installed in the PC, I plan on cloning the Windows install from the original 1 TB hard drive to a 240 GB ssd drive I have lying around (Acronis True Image has served me well for this in the past) ... so it would be the original 1 TB hard drive that came with the PC, the SSD drive (would wipe the contents of the 1 TB hard drive after the clone) , and a 250 GB sata laptop hard drive said friend purchased (no idea why she purchased this but might as well use it since it's sitting around unused).. I'm familiar with hooking hard drives up to a motherboard and getting creative if I have to (I have ssd hard drive enclosures and hopefully with some creativity I can anchor the laptop hard drive in there too) and familiar with cloning Windows so don't need much help there .. however I'm wondering if anyone has done that before? Had three hard drives going at the same time in their Lenovo Erazer x315 PC if I'm lucky enough to catch the eye of someone who happens to have one of these PC's?
(I'm hoping the friend will keep Windows, various programs and say at most one graphically demanding game on the ssd drive, less graphically demanding games and documents on the other hard drives). Thus the power supply upgrade since I'm adding more hardware.
I find myself wishing swapping out the power supply would magically cause the original graphics card to work but I'm not holding out much hope for that ... I'm sure the PC repair shop would have tried that already.
Thanks so much to anyone who reads this and responds
(first pic is of the inside of the PC, a friend of my friend has been trying in vain to get the defective graphics card up and running thus the odd look to it .. rest of pics are of the defective video card )
... I should start out by saying my friend is tight on money and this is the best solution I can come up with but by all means feel free to tell me how stupid I am (something I freely admit ) and what I can do better ... but budget is $85 plus tax at most for a video card for said friend. That and darn video cards are selling out like hotcakes right now ! So if you recommend a better video card for the price I'll gladly look at it but from what I'm seeing there's a good chance it's already sold out (but I'll take note of it though in case it comes back into stock).My friend has a Lenovo Erazer X315 desktop PC, she took it to a computer repair shop who basically told her the PC is hopeless
.. but when you take the video card out of it the PC runs fine (pretty sure processor is one of those types with the integrated graphics type thing going on) .. PC was purchased probably 5 years ago so well past the warranty period.https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/erazer/x-series/x315/
(there's a "tech specs" link on the website above)
She'd really like to start using the PC to game again though... I was looking at installing this video card
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/gigaby...0-graphics-card-black/6409183.p?skuId=6409183
(but if that link does not work it's the " GIGABYTE - NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card - Black Model: GV-N1030D5-2GL "
It needs a 300 watt power supply, the PC comes with a 280 watt power supply ... amazon reviews indicate that's close enough but to be on the safe side I'd like to install the unused Corsair CX 430 watt power supply I have lying around
https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Power-Supply-Units/CX-SERIES/p/CP-9020046-NA
which I know requires a power supply adapter cable so I got this from amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Cotchear-Pow...ly+24+to+14+pin+adapter&qid=1610231447&sr=8-5
So I guess my first question is - would that setup work? Would the video card be compatible with the motherboard and would that power supply work in the PC long as the power supply adapter cable does it's job properly?
My second question is - how does my new video card install compare to the old (probably defective) video card that was inside the PC? .. I'm not 100 percent sure (even looking at the video card - will attach a picture - I'm not sure what the model number is on it but the lenovo product listing for the Erazer X315 says it's a " AMD Radeon R9 M360 2GB " ) ... I really don't have a choice because that's all my friend can afford for a video card ($85 from Best Buy plus tax and all the other video cards in that price range are sold out). I have a feeling the AMD Radeon R9 was better.
Third question... I'd like to sacrifice the CD/DVD writer (just take it out of the PC completely) and have three sata hard drives installed in the PC, I plan on cloning the Windows install from the original 1 TB hard drive to a 240 GB ssd drive I have lying around (Acronis True Image has served me well for this in the past) ... so it would be the original 1 TB hard drive that came with the PC, the SSD drive (would wipe the contents of the 1 TB hard drive after the clone) , and a 250 GB sata laptop hard drive said friend purchased (no idea why she purchased this
but might as well use it since it's sitting around unused).. I'm familiar with hooking hard drives up to a motherboard and getting creative if I have to (I have ssd hard drive enclosures and hopefully with some creativity I can anchor the laptop hard drive in there too) and familiar with cloning Windows so don't need much help there .. however I'm wondering if anyone has done that before? Had three hard drives going at the same time in their Lenovo Erazer x315 PC if I'm lucky enough to catch the eye of someone who happens to have one of these PC's? (I'm hoping the friend will keep Windows, various programs and say at most one graphically demanding game on the ssd drive, less graphically demanding games and documents on the other hard drives). Thus the power supply upgrade since I'm adding more hardware.
I find myself wishing swapping out the power supply would magically cause the original graphics card to work but I'm not holding out much hope for that
... I'm sure the PC repair shop would have tried that already. Thanks so much to anyone who reads this and responds
(first pic is of the inside of the PC, a friend of my friend has been trying in vain to get the defective graphics card up and running thus the odd look to it .. rest of pics are of the defective video card )
Last edited:
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