I'm trying to get a dual display setup. I have an old PCI video card(Matrox I think) and the onboard video(Intel 82945G express chipset family). The BIOS only allows onboard or PCI, not both. Is there a workaround for this or maybe a BIOS flash? I'm looking for a free solution as I have no money. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The computer is an emachines w3609 with an intel mobo e210882, 512Mb ram, 3.33Ghz Celeron D processor, 1 PCIe slot(empty) and 2 PCI slots(1 empty, 1 with video card).

"The BIOS only allows onboard or PCI, not both." You sure about that? Install the PCI card and set the BIOS to use the integrated graphics. After verifying that the PCI card appears in Device Manager, install the driver. Now turn off the PC and connect the second monitor to the PCI card. If the PCI card doesn't output a signal right away, then it should as soon as the Desktop appears on the first monitor (the one connected to the onboard video). First, there was Super Socket 7. Now, there's Super Socket 939. Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 4GB PC3200 1TB 2x 8800GTS in SLI HDTV tuner Blu-Ray X-Fi Prelude A8N32-SLI Deluxe

The selection in the BIOS is usually for selecting which display to show first. If your integrated graphics is running on the PCIe bus you should be able to install a PCI graphics card and get both to work. There have been some compatibility issues over the years. Generally speaking, if the card is compatible with the slot and the cards are not going to run on the same bus, it should work.

I'm sure the BIOS only allows one or the other. It won't let the other device start. It does this with either option. Right now I'm running off the PCI card, but if I choose the onboard I get the same thing. Only one monitor/device will work. I've tried disabling and enabling the devices, but only the one the BIOS is set to will start.

does the motherboard have a AGP slot on it?, if so, perhaps easiest thing is to buy a matrox g400 or matrox g450 dual head card on ebay (make sure it is the one with 2 blue sockets on). they both come in 16 and 32mb versions. Where I am in UK they are available for under 10 pounds (20 US dollars) including shipping. I know you say you have no money - but its not a lot of money. Windows XP supports these cards with no need for extra loading of drivers

Take care if following the advice in #4 above that you don't get one of the earlier G400s. They were AGP 1X and may not work in any newer board. Most were 2X. I believe all the G450s are 2X. Perhaps the warning about blue ports covers that, I don't know. Emachines doesn't seem to have ANY manuals available for download so I couldn't verify your conclusions concerning the options available. However, reading about the 945G and the 950 graphics accelerator products indicates this chipset has some expansion capabilities that may or may not be available on your model. I kind of doubt they are as this is a very low end machine. The total amount of RAM supported is only 2GB, with 224MB shared with the graphics. The two links below may shed some incite to your issue. http://www.intel.com/products/chips... http://www.emachines.com/support/pr...

If it helps, I did some checking and found that the onboard video uses PCI bus 0, device 2 and the video card uses PCI bus 4, device 1. I'm beginning to think I can't do it with the onboard. Unfortunately, I can't do a new video card. If it won't work, then I'll just stick to the old one monitor setup.