My sister's onboard video died last night - she had the box open removing some SCSI devices and must've clobbered something sensitive on the mobo or something. Anyway... If I plug in a video card, what do you think are the chances of the system spotting it and using it instead of the onboard?

Would I have to disable the onboard video first in the BIOS? This would be tricky given that we have no video signal...

Thought I'd ask if anyone knows about these things before I make plans to go over and poke around in there, she lives a couple of towns away and I'm swamped with work at the mo so I want to try to avoid a wasted trip.

BTW: It's not the monitor, she's already tried a different one. Other than the lack of video signal everything appears to be working - we managed to start the computer and then shut windows down using keyboard shortcuts last night.

i also have an onboard video on my motherboard, i used that until i really wanted to play some better games. So i bought a Ti4200 graphics card, install it in the computer, unplug the cable coming from the onboard video to the monitor, plugged it in the Ti4200, and it was good to go. Well you need to first check if the motherboard used has an AGP/PCI-E, do you know what motherboard is in your sisters computer?

1. An "onboard video" in a racing-sim-forum isn't hardware-related but racing-related to me .
2. Chances are 50/50. Either the option in the BIOS is set, so the GFX-board is activated, or the option isn't set, in which case the GFX-board is ignored.

Vain

I thought this was going to be about car onboard cameras in LFS. How disappointed am I!

Exactly like me. I was just very curious who this driver called "Borken" is... Must be some belgian rally-driver...

Vain

Lol i actually thought it was an onboard video about some guy called Borken

If the on board video is borked, that will usually mean the entire northbridge chip is dead. Which is bad, since it controls the AGP too. The graphics processor is embedded in the northbridge.

You can try an el cheapo GF4MX400 or something in there to see if it will work. If it does, you're in luck! All you have to do is set the display device priority in the BIOS to AGP instead of integrated. If it doesn't, get a new motherboard and you can use the nice el cheapo geforce in that instead, or burn it, its up to you.

Edit: After reading the last part of your OP, it sounds like you MAY be in luck. Could just be a dead video connector. Just go and buy a damn el-cheapo geforce or something. They're about £20.

Generally, it will output a display to both devices - i.e. the AGP AND onboard until the complete POST is finished. If one goes down the other should work, granted the northbridge chip isnt too badly damageed.

I think it usually uses one with a monitor plugged into, and you just set the priority for if there's both in the bios.

Try and find a manual though for the motherboard. They are usually very detailed in the bios section and you might be able to navigate through it blindly using the manual as a guide. There always the risk of changing something you don't want too though!

Also, depending on how old it is, the motherboard might use an old skool jumper to decipher which display to init first. Check in the manual, but you should be ok. If its BIOS controlled, it will pick up the AGP card and automatically use that.