Motherboards and Video Cards

[Pearlhouse]

I have a "Foxconn" WinFast K7S741GXMG Motherboard that is a replacement in an old Emachine T2825 Athlon XP K7 2800+ with 512MB Ram. The powersupply was also replaced at the same time. (BIG BURNOUT SPARKS AND ALL) So now Im kinda rebuilding this thing for my grandson. Got a nice big fancy case with lots of lights and other bells and whistles. I purchased another 512 ram to take it up to 1G. Im going to install Windows Vista Home just to make it like all the other PCs in their house and the ones he uses at school. I also purchased a new Sapphire 256MB AGP Radeon 9600 PRO Atlantis video card so hopefully he can play some games with it without all the video hassles that come with the built in video on the M/B.
My question is, when I install this Video card in the AGP slot do I have to turn off the on board video by way of a jumper or through the bios. Ive searched the skimpy "EASY INSTALLATION GUIDE" but nothing about this subject. There is no help whatso ever with the bios so Im not sure what Im looking for here.
Do I just put the board in and it will overide the onboard video?

Also if this thing works out OK we may spring for a new sound card. So the obvious question here is the same as above. Do I have to turn off the old onboard sound before installing the sound card?? Again no mention in the "EASY INSTALLATION GUIDE"
I ve googled til Im blue in the face about this M/B with hardly anything to show for it.
All help will be greatly appreciated

 

[link590o]

the way it's going to go is the following..

no doubt your video card came with a cd that has all the drivers. once you've popped that little guy in the computer, and installed the necessary drivers and software, shut off the computer, and plug in the new card. all you have to do then is close it up, hook the monitor cable up to the monitor port that's on the video card you just put it, and you're good to go.

you don't necessarily have to even turn off the onboard because of the way video card installations works. two monitor ports, only one is plugged in at a time, therefore only that video card is being used.

the other card stays enabled. if you were to plug it into that monitor port, then it would still display. it would just be using the onboard video card.

but if you'd like to disable it, you can go into the device manager and disable it or uninstall it completely from there.

start> control panel> system > hardware tab> device manager> display adapters> intergrated card > right click, uninstall/disable...whichever.

here's a cool thing though. when you install the software that comes with the card, you can use that to set it up in a way that the computer uses two displays.

just load up the software. probably the ATI catalyst controller, and go into the display monitors section. there should be one big box colored in black that's labeled "1". and two other grayed out boxes labeled 2 and 3. you can right click them and select enable.

if you plug in a second monitor into the other monitor port that's on the onboard, you can expand the desktop to use two whole displays. it's kinda cool.

that's the only reason you might want to keep the onboard video card working. if you don't have another monitor, or don't plan on using such a function, then by all means you can feel free to disable or uninstall it.

 

[Pearlhouse]

Hey thanx for the great answer to my problem. Ill give it a go just like you suggested. Twin monitors may be something my grandson would think is impressive so Ill leave it up to him. I didnt mention it but I got him a 22 inch Lcd monitor to replace his 19" big box. So he does have 2 available.

You didnt mention anything about the sound card, will this follow the same installation as the video card.??
Thanx again!~

 

[link590o]

forgive me, i was up later than i should have been, and i honestly didn't notice it.

but anyway, this is another one of those cases, just like with the video card. you can disable it, but you don't have to. once you have the new card seated, installed, and plugged in, then you don't really have to do much else.

but if you wish to disable it, it's the same procedure as with the video card. go into the device manager, find the system's onboard sound card, and either disable or uninstall. perhaps an uninstall might work best seeing as nobody will be using it anymore?

but if you can't find it in the device manager, you may have to go into the BIOS to disable it. that's the software that's programmed into the motherboard, and it controls all the settings and voltages of every part of the PC. you can go in there, and find an option for disabling the sound card if the device manager fails you. usually, to get into the BIOS, you must do a restart, and when the splash screen comes up, there's an option to press delete key or an F2 key or some other key. and that will get you into the BIOS.

i assume the rest is known to you since you've researched a lot of the "how to" sites for the physical installation.


one other note about the dual monitor thing. it's not as intuitive as you'd think. the first time i tried it, it half-worked. i had the desktop show up normally on my first monitor, and then again on the second monitor, but i couldn't scroll over to it.

the reason?

i was trying to scroll left. apparently i had to scroll right to reach the other monitor. i had the second monitor sitting to my left, so i thought that was the direction i had to scroll. LOL.

anyways. i hope the rest goes smoothly for you.

 

[mailpup]

I advise disabling the onboard graphics. The Radeon 9600 Pro has two output connectors which can feed the analog monitor with the D-Sub and the LCD with the DVI connector. So if you want to run two monitors from it, you can. In the meantime, as long as you have the onboard graphics enabled, some system RAM is being reserved for it and is wasted.