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So I need to buy a new graphics card, how can I ensure that my new card is compatible with my computer? I am a total noob.

I run ubuntu.

My computer is a HP Pavilion HPE H8-1100z

From what I have been able to gather, my power supply matters. It has 3 pins. How can I ensure that I buy a card that my will be able to run with the amount of power supplied from my computer?

What else should I look for?

The reason I want a new card is because I don't think my current one is fully compatible with Linux.

I currently have a Caicos Radeon HD 6450 and most things that use WebGL do not display correctly. (Its usually the stuff that uses 3D that I have problems with)

I also have other random problems, like the hover event text descriptions/expansions for icons and links not displaying correctly sometimes.

Driver Details:

  • I am currently using the Open-source AMD/ATI display driver wrapper from xserver-xorg-video-ati, which is the one that is listed as recommended.

  • I tried switching to the proprietary driver and it made the problem worse.

I would like to add that the bit about the popup displays may not be related to the card directly, as it only appeared when I did a total package update last week and updated to 14.10. however, I thought it added to the evidence that my card didn't play well with Linux, so I put it in

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  • Just what do you mean by GPU, a GPU is a chip. If you mean a graphics card, it should have a connector that will fit into your motherboard. Look at your old card and get the same kind of edge connector. It should say on the box that it is Linux compatible.
    – cliff2310
    Dec 28, 2014 at 23:38
  • which GPU do you have?
    – cybernard
    Dec 29, 2014 at 0:27
  • Just googling that: h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/… It has a pci-e x16 so any modern graphics card will fit, but you need a power supply with enough watts to power it. A NVIDIA product will probably be better for linux.
    – cybernard
    Dec 29, 2014 at 0:28
  • derp, sorry graphics card. editing the question
    – Luke
    Dec 29, 2014 at 1:09

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I'd be surprised if there's not a dupe for it already.

There's a few things to consider here. Nearly every modern desktop would have a PCIe X16 slot (there's also x8 and x4 flavours, and you may have x16 physical slots that do x8 speeds and so on.). Most modern video cards would fit into a physical x16 slot.

More powerful cards may need a 6 or 8 pin power connector or 2. Somewhat less powerful ones may be powered entirely off your PCIe x16 connector. Prebuilt systems that didn't have a discrete GPU that needed a power connector are unlikely to come with one, but its a standard component and swapping it should be trivial.

In your shoes, I'd likely end up going with a pci-e powered card. They do tend to be shorter, but if you want something that's more powerful consider length as well. The highest end cards are often longer than standard and don't fit in many cases.

I'd add your current issues may be unrelated - "I also have other random problems, like the hover event text descriptions/expansions for icons and links not displaying correctly sometimes" dosen't sound like a typical GPU problem, and you've not mentioned if you're using open source or catalyst drivers. Switching to the other option may be helpful here.

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  • editing question to refer to current drivers
    – Luke
    Dec 29, 2014 at 1:39

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