[Crispy86]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

I've been wanting to hook up a second monitor to my computer for a while now. About a month or two ago, I purchased a PCI video card to pop into my empty PCI slot to complement my AGP card, but I could never get it to work. I heard that it is sometimes necessary to disable integrated video through BIOS. I don't really understand what intregrated video means (I think it means that your monitor is hooked directly up to the motherboard, and does not run through a video card first. Is this right?)

So my question is, do you think it'll help to disable the intregrated video? How do I do it? Is it easy to turn back on if I screw something up royally?

Thanks in advance.

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You can't use two video cards at the same time, unless they are doing different things, such as one working as a normal video card, and another as a TV receptor. Your motherboard clearly came with an integrated video card, meaning it is a part of the motherboard. In order to use your new video card, you must disable the one on your motherboard you have been using.

To access the BIOS, upon booting, press the Delete key (or Del on some keyboards) a few times. Most likely in the menu such as Chipset Configuration or Integrated Peripherals (these things can vary from BIOS to BIOS) you should see one of two options:

1) You should see a choice to use the video adapter from PCI or AGP, in which case you would select PCI.

2) Another possibility if you don't see the above, or it doesn't help, would be to disable the Onboard Video adapter.

Do not forget to save the changes. You will no doubt see a number of other items with the word video in them. Do not touch them as a rule, unless you know what you are doing.

One last detail, onboard video cards invariably use your RAM memory to function. In other words, when booting you may see that your 256MB Ram is only 224, with 32 missing, or a message such as 224 + 32. What this means is that the BIOS is separating 32MB for the integrated video card. If you are going to use an external video card, you will want to recover this memory. Seek this option in your BIOS as well, and set the memory being used to zero. It wouldn't be using it for your new video card, and would simply just not allow you to use that amount of memory.