Installing graphics card without a display.

[TWM]

My built in graphics broke. I bought a new card and popped it in but i cannot install it because i have no picture. Any ideas? I already tried removing the battery on my motherboard.

 

[True_Snake]

Is it an AGP card or a PCI one?

I just bought a new computer, put in the AGP video card, and it worked without changing anything .


True_Snake

 

[crazy]

Yeah, some details would help us help you.

 

[spy69]

Thats tricky. Im guessing you mean change your bios from built in to agp right?

 

[Scott]

You should have a picture without installing any graphics drivers. If you don't then something's wrong somewhere.

 

[TWM]

The place where i plug in my monitor to the computer is attached to the motherboard. This no longer works. I bought another graphics card. I have to install it, but cant because i have no picture....

 

[Scott]

I don't understand. You were previously using an integrated graphics card, but that's no longer working. So, all you need to do is throw in the new graphics card, hook your monitor up to the AGP/PCIe graphics card (vs. the integrated one) and install the correct drivers? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Assuming you are connecting your monitor to the right card, it should have a picture regardless of if you've installed the drivers or not.

 

[TWM]

Assuming you are connecting your monitor to the right card, it should have a picture regardless of if you've installed the drivers or not.

I am connecting the monitor to the right card. Its not working. I have already tried removing the battery on the motherboard to erase the memory, but it still will not work.

 

[Scott]

Which graphics card did you buy? Does the fan on it spin up when you switch the PC on?
Edit, are you sure the monitor is working ok?

 

[Joey]

Hmm, odd.

I recently purchased an AGP graphics card because it had TV-Out, and as soon as I inserted the card it worked without drivers...

 

[DewKnight]

The card should work without drivers even being installed... Are you able to test the card in any other machines to see if it works?

 

[Crusader]

I had this same problem, you have to somehow disable the integrated graphis card in the BIOS. I had to take my computer into BestBuy/Futureshop. But to do that you'll need an operational integrated video card...

 

[yeppers]

Hmmm thats odd, surely theres got to be a switch of some sort on the motherboard which will probably switch to using your AGP card, as if there aint, its a ridiculous design because when your chipset card dies, you need it working to put a new one on... Surely this aint right.... Theres probably a switch (or on of those clip things lol) on the motherboard somehwere which you could change to get it working...

Let us know exactly what graphics card you bought, model etc everything, and also your motherboard. Hope someone can help you.

 

[TWM]

ITs a PCI e-GeForce MX4000 (64mb)

So everyone is saying i need an AGP and i can just pop it in and it should work?

 

[axilant]

Goto the bios settings, and make sure you use PCI for the display..

 

[aween]

how does he goto the bios if he cant see anything lol ?

only option is to reset the bios:

instructions:

open the pc case

find a battery, smoothly take it out and after 5 seconds put it back in!
and then put in your new gfx card and then it should auto detect.

 

[TWM]

find a battery, smoothly take it out and after 5 seconds put it back in!
and then put in your new gfx card and then it should auto detect.


Tried it several times. No luck. Ive tried 4 different monitors that all previously work, the computer is working fine, just no display.

 

[aween]

then your mobo is fffffked up

 

[primacomputer]

There are too many unknown variables here. How did you determine your built in graphics “broke”? Maybe you get no picture because the mother board is blown, the CPU is blown, the power supply is malfunctioning, your monitor is bad, you have an IDE cable plugged in upside down, or any of the countless other things that could cause you to get no video.

If you have established that the on-board video is the problem, and you have established that the on-board video takes preference over any other card, and the on-board video is enabled and defaults to enabled, and there is no way to disable it through hardware then you will need to change the BIOS settings without video. While there is almost no possibility that this could be the case there are a number of ways to deal with it if there were.
One would be to simply find someone with the same BIOS and ask him to step you through the key strokes to do what you need. I've actually done this for people before, so it's not as far fetched as it sounds.

Another would be to make a boot disk that writes the correct BIOS settings to nvram. If you know how to do this then no explanation is needed, and if you don't then an explanation is pointless

A more complicated method that I have used on many occasions is to install VNC on the machine remotely and then connect using VNC. To change the BIOS settings I used a virtualiser, like VMWare or bochs, to start a virtual machine in a window and enter bios setup from there.

 

[TWM]

Thanks for the ideas. I tried the boot disk with no success. I now plan on taking it to best buy.