So here’s the deal. A friend of mine recently had a video card put in. I’m not quite sure of the model, but it’s an ATI. Anyway, when he put that in, his integrated video stopped working. I’d like to get them both working for him so he can have a duel monitor setup. I can’t even find his integrated video in the hardware Device Manager. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

It'll likely be disabled in the BIOS of your motherboard.

But don't change that. Repeat, don't change that. A third time, do not change that.

Why?

Because you can only have one video card working on a machine at a time. Your video card will have to support dual monitor configuration. If you're not sure if it does, look at the back of the card. You should see the standard monitor plug and a white rectangular plug (called the DVI plug). The second plug is where you can plug in your second monitor if you like.

Here are the different ways you can hook them up:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/02/..._up/page5.html

Most modern cards can support dual monitors from a single card nowadays. Be aware however that older cards may well have two plugs on the back but be incapable of running two screens (well, at least if you don't want exactly the same picture on both). I had a GeForce 3 ti200 for which this was the case, had to upgrade to get dual monitor capability.

It's not true that you can only have one graphics card - before the days of cards that could run two monitors, you had to have two cards. To get to three monitors you need two cards. ADAM is probably right in saying that the integrated video controller is connected in some way to your BIOS, and that it is probably not possible to use it in conjunction with another card.

Check the ATI card your friend has - if it is at all recent you should be able to plug in the second monitor and go. If you have two analog monitors with blue D-SUB type plugs, you can buy a small adapter that will allow you to connect one to the white DVI socket instead.

Alright, sounds reasonable. Thank you guys.

Originally Posted by 0beron

It's not true that you can only have one graphics card - before the days of cards that could run two monitors, you had to have two cards. To get to three monitors you need two cards. ADAM is probably right in saying that the integrated video controller is connected in some way to your BIOS, and that it is probably not possible to use it in conjunction with another card.

That's true, but I was referring to his specific case. The integrated video card will generally throw off the non-integrated card (I haven't seen a case yet where the two could play nicely).

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

That's true, but I was referring to his specific case. The integrated video card will generally throw off the non-integrated card (I haven't seen a case yet where the two could play nicely).

most intergrated gfx uses the agp port now even thought agp 3.0 can support 2 ports (yes nvidia could have done agp sli if it had wanted to :P). and two gfx cards can't share a single agp port. so that's why agp based intergrated chippies do what you said.