Dell Dimension 1100 Upgrades?

There aren't many recent PCI video cards -- and for the $50-100 one might cost, you can easily buy a much faster used system (or for that matter, dedicate something like a Raspberry Pi to the task).

i actually have a Raspberry Pi 2 B+ but can't figure that's more powerful than the Dimension 1100? I've upgraded to 2gb ram, if I leave the graphics card as is will it be powerful enough to run the jobs I mentioned? Also am curious for reference if there is a graphics card upgrade over what's installed... Thanks for your response.

You can't use a PCIe card with an adapter but some older Radeon and nVidia based 32-bit PCI cards are still available.

For example,

www.newegg.com/.../Product.aspx

Also for what's available on newegg as far as PCI cards go are they that much of an upgrade compared to the original graphics card?

Alright weird I had read there was a PCIe to PCI adapter made by startech. Anyway so question if I get a graphics card does that count towards my RAM as well? Bc it says max is 2GB and I bought 2 1GB sticks. If it does is it ok to have a 1GB stick and 1 512MB stick in the RAM slots or do they have to be the same amount?

Does the Ryzen use baking powder or baking soda?

Ok cool I just found a Nvidia GeForce 8400gs PCI graphics card on eBay that I purchased for $25. Hopefully that'll work well :).

Dang to late I suppose... anyway those are all the questions I had. Hopefully the one I bought turns out alright. I had originally read that Sparkle GeForce was good which is why I bought it and $25 was the lowest I found.

Stay away from those.  The 8400 and 8600 chips are very well known for having a fatal design flaw.

One nine-year-old article is definitive proof that the long-serving 8400 GPU is flawed?

There's far more than just one article - nVidia fought a protracted battle over these, finally settling. For $25 it's worth a gamble - and even seeing one still running is amazing. Most of these have by now succumbed to the design flaw.

There are also mulitple manufacturers including Dell, HP, APPLE, Toshiba, Etc that had an "nvidia" recall.  There were 10 models that had this issue.  This also meant that 8400 and 8600 cards, laptops, etc died the desoldering death.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203254

NVIDIA GPU Update for Dell Laptop Owners

Earlier this month, sites like Ars Technica and ZDNet blogged about NVIDIA’s statement regarding a potential issue with some of NVIDIA's Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) used in notebooks. According to NVIDIA, these affected GPUs are experiencing higher than expected failure rates causing video problems. Though this issue is not unique to Dell, some of these affected GPUs are used in certain Dell laptops. That's why I wanted to take a few minutes here to explain the issue and to let customers know what to do next.

The issue is a weak die/packaging material set, which may fail with GPU temperature fluctuations. If your GPU fails, you may see intermittent symptoms during early stages of failure that include:

• Multiple images
• Random characters on the screen
• Lines on the screen
• No video

Dell recommends that you flash your system BIOS (see links in the table below). Each of these BIOS updates listed in the table below modifies the fan profile to help regulate GPU temperature fluctuations. Note: if you are already experiencing video-related issues like the bullet points above, updating the BIOS will not correct them. Dell will provide support for customers who have experienced GPU failure according to the terms of the system warranty.

These BIOS updates will help reduce the likelihood of GPU issues. New systems are being shipped with the updated BIOS revisions. Here's the list of the latest BIOS versions. Click on the links below to download them.

Update: As Direct2Dell reader foduekid noted, the A09 BIOS update for the XPS M1530 was made available yesterday after I published this blog post. I've updated the table above with the link.

Update 2: I'm getting e-mails and comments that are similar to those of Direct2Dell readers like Customer, fr and barryd. Like I mentioned in one of my responses, this will not be the only blog post on this topic. When I have new details to share, I will share them here. Several of you have expressed concern over potential battery life issues. The reality is that these BIOS updates will not have any noticeable effect on battery life or overall system performance. These updates do not make the cooling fan run all the time. The fan may cycle on more frequently, but when it does, it will run at half or quarter speed.

Update 3: Since Kara Krautter unveiled the Vostro 2510 on the Small Business blog yesterday, we've gotten some questions about it since it uses an NVIDIA GPU. Take a look at some of the comments in the Vostro 2510 Engadget post to see what I'm talking about. The Vostro 2510 will ship with the latest BIOS updates.

If you need help flashing your system BIOS or experience any of the video-related issues listed above, please contact Dell Technical Support. Our teams are committed to working with affected customers to resolve issues on a case-by-case basis.

These BIOS updates will help reduce the likelihood of GPU issues. New systems are being shipped with the updated BIOS revisions. Here's the list of the latest BIOS versions. Click on the links below to download them.

For $25 it's worth a gamble - and even seeing one still running is amazing.

Most of these have by now succumbed to the design flaw.

Are there figures that back that up or just hearsay?

If you do a google search for that issue, you'll find quite statistics that say somewhere around 30-40% of these failed within the first 3-4 years.  nVidia settled -- and while it's difficult now to distinguish early from normal failure - these are on the order of 10 years old -- the engineering analysis that was done points to a defect in the material chosen to construct the chips.  It was not resistant enough to thermal cycling.  At any rate, it's a moot point for most now -- time has made these more or less obsolete other than to owners of older systems (PCI video cards have mostly disappeared from the market -- there haven't been any new ones released in years).