PCI-e fail? or am I missing something, please help!

Hi there,

I bought a Dell xps 8300 a few years back. It has been great for me and surpassed my expectations for a moderate gaming computer. I believe it came stock with ATI RADEON HD 6450.

Ill get to the point - A few months back the HD became corrupted and every once in a while I would lose my picture. I would have to restart once or twice to get the video back. One day I got the blue screen and it couldn't fix the HD errors itself. So I had to completely reformat the hard drive, even over Dell's backup partition. I had to do this all with onboard graphics. So I got the computer back and working except I have never been able to get the RADEON to work. I tested it in someone elses PC and it works fine. I really hope I don't need to go out and buy a new mobo. I can see the PCI-e in device manager and all looks fine. But I have tried many times to fix this and I just cant seem to work.

THINGS IVE TRIED

Blowing out the PCI-e slot/ video card

Dont see anything useful in the BIOS to help me.

downloaded drivers but they wont install cause the card isnt being recognized

Bought a new PSU to see if I was losing voltage on my stock one

Basically I have been at this for a good 5-6 months and I've run dry, I figured this would be the best place to ask.

Am I missing an obvious solution as to why my PCI-e isnt picking up the card? Will HDMI only work if the drivers are installed previously?

Any tips or possible solutions would make me forever grateful

Regards