wow, not sure how I missed all those messages (hence me deleting the redundant message) Okay, I think I might be able to figure it out now. I'm actually not that computer illiterate... I've just lost interest in computer hardware the more time that goes by (not sure why--less into computers and gaming than I used to be.) I've actually built several computers before. Some of them were great, some not so great. But this interest in computer hardware has waned over the past 15 years. So I'm not familiar with the new form factors (although they appear to be simpler to use than the oldskool stuff that was the standard for over two decades). That's why I bought a Dell, cause my understanding was it was the best alternative to building my own. I was having problems with the last computer I bought, and figured--if I buy one, it will work great. But it didn't. It actually worked very much like the last one I built--very puzzling (even after formats, the one I built was wonky] and now this dell has been the same since I got it. The tech guy helped out a lot, and it's running better since he tweaked stuff in the registry and elsewhere, but it is still has minor program crashes (lately explorer has periods of not responding, like 10-30 seconds) quite annoying. I just installed 2 gigs of Corsair ram, so I now have 3gigs, but it still hiccupped. Hopefully when I figure out how to supply power to this card the computer will smile for once in its life, instead of being the grumpy old fart it is. Anyway, thanks everyone for replying to this thread with the helpful info.