Disabling on-board video, enabling PCI VGA Card 1

[BionicJohn]

I need to disable the on-board video on a Gigabyte GA 7ZMMP mo-bo. The chip is an nVidia TNT2 which is suffering from the well known "grey lines" problem. I have tried three different monitors, all known to be good, and the problem occurs on all three.

The PC is a "Time".

I have a Sapphire ATI Radeon 7000 64MB PCI card which I intend to use in a vacant PCI slot.

In the BIOS setup, I can see nothing to disable the on-board VGA chip and enable PCI VGA.
The User manual seems to lack any detail on this issue -

http://www.timesupport.com/timesupport/drivers/motherboards/zipfiles/Gigabyte GA 7ZMMP.zip

I also understand the GA-7ZMMP was manufactured by Gigabyte solely for Time, does not have an AGP slot like the 7ZMMH and has a unique and un-upgradeable BIOS.

What I really need to know is if the PCI card will be automatically used in preference to the on-board chip?

And should the move to the PCI card fail in some way, will its removal mean the system defaults back to the on-board nVidia chip?

TIA.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[garebo]

You are free to go ahead and try the pci video card, either it will work or not, but it wont hurt anything or make any radical changes.
I'm hoping that somewhere you will still find reference to the onboard video. Either there is a way to disable onboard video from the bios or a jumper on the motherboard, its gotta be one or the other.
If, in the end you have no luck, then what i would do is go to the gigabyte website and email support and ask them, or i would find a similar mobo there and download the manual, see if the pics on the manual look similar to your mobo (motherboard) and see if you can find the answer to how to change the video, either bios or jumper, has to be one or the other.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[BionicJohn]

Thanks garebo,

I've found the exact mo-bo manual which seemed to be mostly blank pages until Acrobat demanded Chinese fonts be installed. However, I can find no reference to either a mo-bo jumper or switch in the BIOS.

I'm just going to install the card, plug the monitor into it and hope I can see things on it when it reboots. Hopefully WinME (yuk) will make noises about finding new hardware.

I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[garebo]

Okay, we'll get it going one way or another!


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[Kakkarotto]

Is it possible to just disable the device for the on-board graphics in the device manager?

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, Kakkarotto,

Yes, I was wondering if I should uninstall all the on-board vid chip drivers and install the PCI VGA card drivers before switching off and installing the card.

I'm not going to be able to get to this computer for about 10 days, so there's no rush.


Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[garebo]

You can uninstall the onboard vid chip drivers, no problem with that. Then put the new vid card in and boot up. Windows will recognize the card and install win xp generic vid driver that will work fine until you install the latest and greatest drivers from your cd or the net, whatever or wherever you are getting the drivers from.
Should be fairly straightforward.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[bcastner]

Do not uninstall the onboard device drivers, particularly as you have no effective way through the BIOS or motherboard jumper to disable the device itself.

And particularly with a Radeon 7000, which has brought many HP owners with non-disablable onboard video to their knees. (Do a google on "HP Pavilion install Radeon 7000" for both horror stories and practical advice.

Prior to cracking the case, disable in Device Manager the onboard video adapter. Now shutdown and install the new card. Warning: Likely your BIOS screens will still appear on the onboard adapter. And, remember to switch the monitor cable to the new adapter.

Instal the Radeon drivers in Safe Mode by hitting F8 early and often at system start.

 

[garebo]

My apology. I didnt know this was an HP mobo.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[dakota81]

Check for an option to set primary display to PCI. Then in WinXP set the on-board video device to "disable" (DO NOT uninstall). Works for a lot of e-machines.

 

[BionicJohn]

Thanks, Bill.

I shall take heed. I definitely want to avoid the nightmare scenario of a blank screen and not being able to change anything.

The on-board chip an nVidia TNT2 and the OS is WinME. I'm going to install an ATI Radeon 7000. Hopefully this combination is not as problematic as that suffered by the HP/Radeon 5000 users. I could attach a monitor to each video output… or is that silly?

The PC is a TIME, with a "bespoke" Gigabyte GA 7ZMMP mo-bo and BIOS, and lacks what would standard be on any generic board. Hence this posting.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[garebo]

yes, and i didnt pay enough attention to that part, again i apologize.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[BionicJohn]

I'd like to close this thread by saying I have the (WinME) PC in question working. All is fine.

The trick was to change "VGA Boot from" setting in the BIOS from "AGP" to "PCI", despite the fact there's no AGP slot, which seemed to be the default value.

I've installed a PCI 64Mb Radeon 7000 and after a few reboots to install the drivers and determine the monitor all is well. It's also freed up 8Mb of system RAM too.

The picture on the screen is now very sharp, without streaking and seemingly faster.

Many thanks to all for your support.

Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.