Onboard video and GPU conflict - help!

[JMKeynes]

Onboard Video and Video Card - Dual usage

Hello all. I know this question has been covered at length, but I can't find a workable solution for my setup anywhere.

I have a dell 8500 (intel i5-3450 cpu) with an amd 5770 graphics card installed. I want to use two monitors, but can't because whenever I plug two monitors into the 5770, I get this strange interference/distorted signal on one or both of the monitors (best described as flickering). I have swapped cables, checked the connections, used the monitors on different pcs - the monitors are fine. It is something with the pci-e slot itself, I'm guessing, because I had the same issue when I swapped GPUs from another PC (same type of distortion).

I've decided to get around the inexplicable inability to use dual monitors from the card by using onboard graphics too. My problem: I can't get the onboard video and the gpu to work at the same time. I successfully enabled intel-multi-display in the BIOS. When i start the PC with a monitor plugged into the onboard port, I get that monitor to work. When I start the PC with a monitor plugged into the gpu, that one works. But if I plug in a second one, windows doesn't see it, regardless of which was plugged in first. I noticed that my device manager only shows the 5700 series under display adapters (no onboard video), even when I boot the PC with the monitor plugged straight into the onboard.

Do I have to unplug the GPU and install intel integrated drivers or something?

 

[ak47jar3d]

I have done this with intel hd 4600 and 7970. You need to install on board graphic drivers.

 

[JMKeynes]

ak47 - ok, when I tried to do that with the GPU plugged in, it didn't work - i got "system doesn't meet requirements" errors when trying to install the correct intel drivers. does the GPU need to be unplugged?

 

[ak47jar3d]

No it doesn't. All I had to do was activate in bios and my device manager>>display devices had an unknown device which happen to be my on board graphics.

 

[JMKeynes]

Yeah, its not showing up in my device manager. Can't figure how to get it to. As I said, even when I have nothing plugged into GPU and a monitor plugged in to onboard, all that shows up in device manager is the GPU. I'm wondering if I have to unplug GPU to force it onto onboard video, install a driver for intel integrated graphics, then plug in GPU and see if it works.

Trying to avoid doing that because I don't want AMD driver / intel driver to get confused/me to get confused.

 

[ak47jar3d]

Nothing bad should happen if you try to use on board graphics after unplugging discrete graphics. The computer won't get confused

 

[JMKeynes]

Thx for the reassurance. I just unplugged the GPU, and ran the computer straight off onboard. When the GPU was unplugged, it let me install the intel drivers for integrated graphics without errors. After a reboot, intel showed up in the device manager under display adapters. I then shutdown and re-plugged GPU, and on reboot both showed up in the device manager.

Root cause for the interested - this computer (a dell xps 8500) came WITHOUT intel hd graphics drivers installed, because it came with a graphics card (not the one I'm using, but whatever). Because of this, trying to do intel multi-monitor using onboard and GPU didn't work. I had to install the drivers myself, and now I can dual monitor away.