just a very quick question my sons computer has on board video and i want to put a pci video card in it is it just a matter of disableing the drivers or is there more involved

Hi mushroom, hi everyone Yes, there is more involved... You will most likely have to disable the onboard video card in the CMOS. And to avoid conflicts within Windows, and the loading of unnecessary drivers, uninstall the drivers for the onboard video card. Best Regards and Wishes, The Count, Co-webmaster of mesich.com

If your board has an AGP slot, an AGP video card is much more preferrable than PCI. If you have PCI slots only, be very careful what you choose...for the most part PCI cards suck, but they're better than onboard graphics. If this upgrade is for gaming purposes, there really are only a few good choices available. The best PCI card you're likely to find is an FX5500...make sure to get one that uses 128-bit memory.

for the most part PCI cards suck, but they're better than onboard graphics err jam, is that really true? cards like the FX5500 are an excpetion. Most likely, the PCI cards one would find will be more like a replacement for a faulty onboard so as to make the system just about functional. On intel GMA boards at least, the onboards must be as good or bad as most PCI cards, things like the 5500 excluded. CPU/Ram: 2400 / 512 Manufacturer/Model: pentium 3 Something is seriously wrong here, as you can see. We need to know exactly what motherboard he is having before saying anything more. For all we know a RAM upgrade might also be necessary. Kailas Shastry Fried PSU => my 2000+ XP, mobo, mouse and 9600XT are also fied. Damn those light-weight high wattage PSUs!

There are very few bios/cmos's that have a setting that turns off onboard video - the only ones I have encountered are a few Intel brand name mboard ones where you can choose one video in a list of which video to use (e.g. onboard video is the default, you can choose PCI slot, or that or AGP slot). Some old mboards have a jumper that disables the onboard video if it is moved or removed, but I haven't seen that since 486's. If you see no setting to turn off, or choose other than, the onboard video in the bios....... If you have onboard video and only PCI slots (or that and ISA slots) on the motherboard, installing a PCI card should automatically disable the onboard video. If you have onboard video and a AGP video slot, as well as PCI slots (or that and ISA slots) on the motherboard, installing an AGP PCI card should automatically disable the onboard video. If you do that, you must change settings in your bios to initialize AGP video first instead of PCI video, or you may have no video after Windows starts to load (a black screen). However, if you have onboard video and an AGP video slot, as well as PCI slots (or that and ISA slots) on the motherboard, installing a PCI card may NOT disable the onboard video, and the card and onboard video may confict with each other, and you may not be able to cure that problem even if you Disable the onboard video in Device Manager - Display Adapters. Also, some video cards are difficult or impossible to install if there is onboard video on some mboards, but those are rare, applying mostly to mboards older than yours and old cards you can no longer buy (e.g. ATI Xpert98). .... If you have onboard video and only PCI slots (or that and ISA slots) on the motherboard, go ahead and try a PCI video card. Follow the instructions for installing the card, paying attention to what you do if you have onboard video. Generically they usually tell you to: - go to Control Panel - Display - Settings - Advanced - Adapter and change it to Standard Display Adapter (VGA) or similar - go to Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs, un-install any drivers for the onboard video. - sometimes, just before you install the card - go to Device Manager - Display Adapters, and Remove the onboard video, then shut down the computer and install the card. NOTE that some cards (e.g. ones with ATI chipsets) will install much more easily if you don't let Windows install any drivers for the card when it detects the new card while booting - Cancel that - let Windows load to the Desktop, then install the drivers using the install program on the CD that came with it. If you have no problems installing it, after you have installed it, you can check in Device Manager - Display Adapters to see if the onboard video is listed there - if it is, Windows is detecting both the onboard video and the new card, and the mboard did not auto disable the onboard video - Disable it (Removing it will not work - it will come back next boot). PCI cards usually cost more than AGP cards with the same chipset. I got a PCI card with the ATI 9200 chipset not long ago for about $100 and it works well on the computer I installed it on. Something like that would be fine on your older computer, and your son would be able to play more games. If you want to see for yourself before you buy, you can often download the manual for the card on the manufacturer's web site at the downloads for that model, and that often has install instructions within it. If there is a problem with installing that card if you have onboard video, it will probably be mentioned in the manual, or in the release notes for the drivers for the card on the web site.