Second monitor - probably missing something silly

[mikeprice]

OK - just got a new second hand PC - seems to work fine

 

except that it has an extra graphcs card - i.e. motherboard plus this one and I can't get it to work properly

 

it seems to pick which video connection to use based on $deity knows what - one time I have it working fine on the on board connection - restart and it wants to use tthe PCI board

 

Ideally it needs to use both

 

I have used this config before but I just installed a board and ran setup from the supplied DVD - simple - but this one was already in there

 

is there something obvious that I should need to do - I have looked though the BIOS and loaded current drivers - what else have I missed?

 

TIA

 

Mike

[Steve21]

Normally you can't use motherboard and a graphics card, it's one of other unless your bios supports both? (One of our interview questions on why a screen is black when a card is plugged in! )

 

Steve

[mikeprice]

Yes - I thought that - but then why does it sometimes only want to the motherboard connection??

 

TBH I have very seldom had to do much with graphics cards - they have always just worked and I have connected 2 monitors to the PCI card

 

anyway - as I was typing this I was starting it up - it has now decided to work with 2 monitors connected to the pci card

 

I just hate it when something fixes itself for no good reason

[NB9457]

Checked the BIOS and made sure it only chooses the GPU?

 

And you can actually use onboard and PCIe graphics (at least with intel) I've been doing it for years

[Geoff]

Yes, normally there's a setting telling it to boot of either the onboard or the card. Sometimes (e.g. my gaming mobo has this) you get another option for 'auto' where it randomly guesses what you want (perhaps the cause of the behaviour you are seeing?) or an option for both.

[mikeprice]

Thanks - randomly guessing sums it up - I will have another look at the bios when I am brave enough to shut it down (it is working at the moment and it is sooooo much better having 2 monitors)