Second graphics card woes

[Hans L]

My eVGA Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS broke. It sat in ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP and supplied a third monitor. Primary card is eVGA Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT. Got new GS card today, installed it, and started up. Figured I did not need to fiddle with drivers, since I never uninstalled them.

Things worked fine for a while. However, when I used Nvidia's settings, changes I made were always made to monitor 1, regardless of which monitor I had highlighted in the settings window.

Then, suddenly, Firefox could not be started (IE started fine). I turned the computer off and then on. Started up, but monitors stayed black. eVGA manual says this is often caused by the integrated video adapter not being disabled before installing new PCI-based video card.

Stated in safe mode. Worked fine, but no third monitor. Restarted and got the dreaded blue screen: machine_check_exception. Some hardware problem. Started in safe mode. Worked, but no third monitor.

I finally removed the 7600 GS, and puter started up normally (with the two monitors driven by the 7600 GT card).

Now, I am not sure how to continue. I must admit that I am not sure what the "integrated video adapter" is called and how/why I need to uninstall it. Did not do it the first time around (and I do not think it broke my card :-)

Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

Hans L

[Hans L]

I wanted to add that I am using XP Home, and that only the 7600 GT adapter is installed after all (according to Device Manager). Still I would appreciate some advice.

Hans L

[acrobat]

I am not sure what you mean and what the problem is by the way, so my appologies if this is a bunch of nonsence

But that "integrated video adapter" is likely the graphics chip built into your motherboard. For people who dont need fast graphics to play games and whatnot.... they can just use that graphics chip built into the motherboard. That is good enough for using office and surfing the web and stuff.

But if you fit a real graphics card to your computer, you have to disable that "integrated video adapter" on your motherboard, or it will conflict with your proper graphics card. You can do that in the BIOS.

Hope that helps. Again, if I got the wrong end of the stick... just ignore me

[Hans L]

No, not wrong at all, Acrobat. I'll check in BIOS and see what I can find.

Thanks!

Hans L

[acrobat]

good luck let us know how it goes

[Hans L]

I had a long reply about what I found in BIOS up on the screen. Then, my wife came in ... and you know what happened. I was dragged into the kitchen to listen to something she wanted to talk about (quite legitimate stuff:-), and when I came back, I turned off the computer, and puff, there went the message.

I short, I don't think I found any enable/disable internal graphics adapter in BIOS. My hunch is that this mobo feels an external graphics card, and no disabling is needed.

In any event, I installed the graphics card again, and now it is working again (for how long, nobody knows). However, the correct drivers are now installed (automatically this time -- I do not know what happened the first time I installed the 7600 GS card).

Thank you, Acrobat, for your support. No matter what happens, when you are treading on the edge of ignorance, which I am doing every time I do anything more advanced with the computer, it is calming to have someone listening and suggesting actions.

I may be bakk!

Hans L

[Papa Lazarou]

It sat in ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP

That motherboard does not have on board video.

Sorry can't help with the rest of the issues though.

[Hans L]

That motherboard does not have on board video.

Sorry can't help with the rest of the issues though.

Certainly help enough! Thank you.

Hans L

PS. A couple of hours later: still working