Motherboard Automatically Enable and Switch to Onboard?

prdtrainor

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Jan 30, 2011
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I have had a problem with my PCI video card on my computer running XP. The PCI card after moving was not recognized and the computer defaulted to the onboard VGA. AS part of diagnostics (a little knowledge is bad!) I went to the control panel display and noted it was using this and instructed it to disable the feature. The computer rebooted To what I was hoping the PCI card but after successfully showing the Windows XP splash screen the screen goes blank!! I cannot get into the control panel to correct my error. I have accessed the BIOS on start up and don't appear to be able to cahnge anything. Help
 

jockey

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Feb 28, 2010
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In bios, look for display settings, primary display. Choose PCE (PCI-express), this will override XP. Normally, the system will detect where your monitor is plugged into. If you have a pre-built system with onboard GPU, you may also need to disable onboard thru device manager. Systems vary with this.
 

mirrion

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Jan 29, 2011
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I suspect you're using an actual PCI video card, not a PCI-E? Is this an older computer?

Some older computers allow you to set things differently in the BIOS. One common setting is "Auto" for your display device. This setting varies between motherboards, but in some cases the motherboard will choose the first video device it sees, and depending on the location, may not be your card.

Regardless of your situation, here's a good trick: in the BIOS what you want to boot to, PCI, PCI-E or whatever, make sure it doesn't say auto, onboard, or integrated. If windows fails to start with a screen, triple check each video port for oddball behavior, then head over to safe mode, uninstall all video drivers there (do NOT disable). Reboot to normal and widows should detect your video card.

Other things to check is to be sure your card isn't loose, and that any video power is plugged in (either the 4pin to your motherboard for basic PCI-E, or your 6pin(s) if you're running a newer card). If it's an old card, just be sure it isn't loose.