I made another thread about getting a new graphics card for my dell dimension 1100 pc but everyone there agreed that my mother board would not take the power of the new graphics card or (bottleneck) it... They said i needed a new mother board then buy a new graphics card. So i wanted to know any board that would be better then my current and can handle a new graphic card. My price range is 30-130 dollars, Since i will never have money to get an entiryl new system i would just rather upgrade this one. (dell dimension 1100) And also If i get a new mother board does that Make it an entierly different system??? Im wanting to know since i will be emptying my piggy bank on this system . And by the way I have no idea what my box size is.
so can you guys pleas help....

I took a quick look at your graphics card thread...
Sorry my friend, I have have no good news for you...
You will spend far too much for very little gain on your current rig.
If you toss in a new motherboard, you'll need a new cpu, new graphics card, new psu, new RAM, yada, yada, yada...

Save yourself the aggravation and lousy bang for your buck and keep on saving your pennies for a new rig. If you have to...pick up a second part-time job.

I have to agree. There isn't much hope of rebuilding your present system.

I suggest looking through the system builder's guide over at Ars Technica to get an idea of what it takes to put together a budget build these days that will still be acceptable for gaming. http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200803.ars/2

You can subtract certain items from their total that you already have, like the monitor, keyboard and mouse, optical drive, maybe the hard drive if you want to reuse it.

Another possible path is to take one of the budget builds from Dell and soup it up with a better video card. But you have to be aware that the bottom of the line Dells do not have much extra oomph in the power supply, and may not be able to support a mid to top end card like an Nvidia 8800GT or ATI 3850.

At this point you're out of luck. Any upgrades to that system will cost way too much money for too little gain: If you get a new motherboard, you'll find that it may not be compatible at all with your current processor or memory. Most new motherboards require a faster processor FSB than that of your current processor. And if you cannot set the motherboard's FSB speed to match your processor's lower FSB speed, you will have serious problems. And newer motherboards also require DDR2 or DDR3 memory, neither of which is compatible at all with DDR1 motherboards like yours. The cost of a new motherboard, processor and memory will leave you with no room at all whatsoever in your budget for even a decent low-end graphics card.

Moreover, even if you get a new motherboard small enough to fit inside your Dell's case, you may find that its mounting holes may not line up properly with the holes in your Dell's case. This can result, once again, in major problems if the mobo is allowed to rattle around in an ill-fitting chassis.

And even if the Dell's motherboard form factor and mount are "standard," you will find that your system's power supply unit may not be robust enough for an upgraded graphics card. As a rule, OEM system's power supply units are chosen such that it is barely strong enough to handle the original components which originally came with the system.

Put them all together, and you will find that the upgrade for your current system will cost more than double your maximum budget -- closer to $300.

Here's your best bet IMO:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145040
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103243
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811138065

Including shipping, you can get the above for $191 and maybe a little less if Newegg gives you a break on the shipping. You will need to use your existing hard drive, DVD drive, keyboard and mouse. Later you can add more memory but if you run XP then 1 gig should do OK. You might get by with the motherboard's on-board video until you can buy a better video card. Also, the motherboard I specified will let you upgrade to AMD's three or four core Phenom processors when they get to be dirt cheap in a year or so. The weakest link of all these parts is the 430 watt PS in the case but on your budget you have to make sacrifices.

This isn't too bad for a complete system but it exceeds your budget:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883103135

I too agree that your options are limited and you might be better saving more and getting something later.

Go to a thrift store and get a cheap tower that uses a generic ATX motherboard. Now you can buy a nice ATX motherboard and start on a new rig. You will already have a PSU in it. Hewlett Packard PC's use a generic motherboard. You can tell by looking at the back of the PC if it is generic.

I guess im pretty much screwed right?...>> well what if i found a motherboard that supports the parts i already have> if i found one that supports the parts that i already have will it be as shitty as my current one?

Well, 5 members responded and no one was in favor of upgrading.
I'm afraid asking essentially the same thing again won't change our advice.

To recap...if all your "what ifs" come to pass...
you will have wasted your time and money, you will be very unhappy and you will beSeriously, save your money and yourself from this dead-end project

First off, you have to determine what you have now. From the documentation I have seen: http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1076752
you have a Pentium 4 Socket 775 motherboard that uses DDR1 ram. I don't know the speed of the cpu, or the speed or amount of ram you have.

There is a replacement motherboard at Newegg for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157115
It can use either DDR1 or DDR2 ram, but not both together. It does not have onboard video, so you would have to buy an AGP video card to go with it. This is not the best solution, since video has moved on to the PCI-E slot on the newest cards. As a budget/intermediate build it might be acceptable to you.

The best available AGP card that I know of is the ATI 3850, but it is an expensive investment in an obsolete format.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131090

A reasonable compromise might be this 7600GS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130076
It would probably run with your current power supply.

But there are usually problems getting a regular atx board running in an oem case. The connectors for the on button, restart button, etc will be a pain in the butt. And it might not fit perfectly. Hard to predict that. If you can find a cheap case locally, that might be a better plan.

I still advise waiting till you can afford a better, modern system, but what I've listed here is possible, if not the best solution.

Off topic, can you take a hard drive from one computer and install it in another?

Yes. You can install it as a secondary drive of course, but there is a way to retain the operating system if you want to use it as the boot drive. There is a stickied thread on this at Ars Technica:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...4/m/1400925745

This applies to Windows operating systems.

pretty much convinced that i am infact fucked on this... So i guess when i get the money i will start on a new system and build up from there right

I wish i had one of those stupid friends with a high end computer that though it was "broken" because it didnt start up and decided to give it to me,,, to find out that bios settings were changed around to boot from cd drive... you guys know what im talkin about... THOSE STRAIT UP STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS THAT CALL SOMETHING BROKEN WHEN ITS NOT.. THOSE PEOPLE YOU WANT TO HIT IN THE MOUTH FOR BEING SO STUPID IN YOUR PRESENCE