Well you avoided one of the classic blunders "never get involved in a land war in Asia." but check that the back end of the card didn't pop out when you tightened the bracket down, check that you cleared the CMOS, check that you didn't knock any fan connectors off. If you installed more RAM at the same time, uninstall it, some of these Dell Dementias have issues with more than 2GB and AGP aperture location, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it once we figure if the GPU is working or not.

Edit: AGP smaygeepee, graphics aperture, where it sticks it's sketchpad in the memory map, whatever hole it plugs into.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-29, 00:08:

Well you avoided one of the classic blunders "never get involved in a land war in Asia." but check that the back end of the card didn't pop out when you tightened the bracket down, check that you cleared the CMOS, check that you didn't knock any fan connectors off. If you installed more RAM at the same time, uninstall it, some of these Dell Dementias have issues with more than 2GB and AGP aperture location, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it once we figure if the GPU is working or not.

Edit: AGP smaygeepee, graphics aperture, where it sticks it's sketchpad in the memory map, whatever hole it plugs into.

Didn't change any settings. Just removed the old video card which was a 256MB 8600 GTS, with the new one which is a 1GB card. The Dimension has 3GB DDR2 in it (2x1GB & 2x512MB). Both cards are PCI-E

Took and reset the BIOS, reinserted the video card, etc and nothing. Plug the old video card in and it works.

take the 2x512 out and try. See if we're fighting Dell stupidity.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-29, 01:36:

take the 2x512 out and try. See if we're fighting Dell stupidity.

Took out the 2x512 sticks and nothing, tried just 1x1gb nothing, tried 1x512 and still nothing. So I am guessing the video card is dead? The video card arrived just wrapped in bubble wrap, no anti-static bag or anything like that. Checked the card over and nothing looks broken or out of place.

Maybe, all my Dells are picky with graphics apart from their weird RAM limitations. I wouldn't declare it really dead until you've tried it in something else. My 4870s have ran in VIA/AM2 boards and nForce 680i s775 boards. My Dells are a year or two older than yours but all I could get working in them were an X600 or a GF7300GT.. though I didn't bother trying my 6870s or R9 280s

Do you have another PCI-e system to test the card in?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 02:44:

Do you have another PCI-e system to test the card in?

Unfortunately I don’t. All I have is an Optiplex 9020 SMF computer, which won’t work. It’s just weird that the old card works fine, but this one doesn’t.

Does your motherboard have two PCI-e slots? If you can I'd install both cards and connect your monitor to the one that works and see if windows detects the 2nd card.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 19:03:

Does your motherboard have two PCI-e slots? If you can I'd install both cards and connect your monitor to the one that works and see if windows detects the 2nd card.

It has 1@ x16 slot in length and 1@ x8 slot in length

If the back of the 8x slot isn't solid you can put the 16x card in there

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 19:55:

If the back of the 8x slot isn't solid you can put the 16x card in there

It is solid, and because it is a BTX board and the new card is dual slot, it wouldn't work.... I have taken and bought a 4890 by MSI on eBay, so once it arrives we shall see it if works or not, I really hope it does. Otherwise, I'll have to get a different motherboard and case...

johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-29, 10:37:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 02:44:

Do you have another PCI-e system to test the card in?

Unfortunately I don’t. All I have is an Optiplex 9020 SMF computer, which won’t work. It’s just weird that the old card works fine, but this one doesn’t.

Don't you have like... a modern Windows 10 era computer you could try the card in?

bZbZbZ wrote on 2021-05-30, 03:44:

johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-29, 10:37:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-05-29, 02:44:

Do you have another PCI-e system to test the card in?

Unfortunately I don’t. All I have is an Optiplex 9020 SMF computer, which won’t work. It’s just weird that the old card works fine, but this one doesn’t.

Don't you have like... a modern Windows 10 era computer you could try the card in?

If he has a similar situation as I have, he could be having a laptop with more modern hardware in stead of a desktop pc. But that is just speculation.