Adding ATI video card to a Pavilion 325C

Darrell Dorsey wrote:
I'm running a Pavilion 325C with AMD 2400 XP and WinXP.

I have a Crucial ATI 9100 128mb video card on the way. I want to get things
lined up. After a lot of searching I have not found a definitive on how to
disable the onboard video. HP's site says use the device manager and BIOS
for this. But the only thing I see in the BIOS is where the AGP slot is
made primary over the PCI slots. Maybe the onboard card is sort of PCI
slot.

So for, what I believe I should do is:

1. Uninstall the onboard video via the Device manager.
2. Install the new card
3. Go into the bios and set the AGP card as primary
4. Start-up the machine
5. Install the ATI 9100 drivers.

Does this sound correct. I wonder if I should install the ATI 9100 drivers
after step 1 (uninstall the onboard drivers).

One other question, how do I maintain any video when I have uninstalled the
onboard video and not installed the ATI drivers or the ATI card.

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Darrell


Darrell,in a lot of boards just plugging an addon into the agp slot will
disable the onboard automatically. If so, your onboard will disappear
from device manager on its own. If not,check in the bios for an
enable/disable setting--your mobo manual should show this under bios
settings.Third option baring any of the above is to uninstall as you said.
As soon as you plug a board in a slot Windows will boot with
generic drivers (usually lowest color,lowest resolution) so you will be
able to see what you are doing.
Check the home site for your monitor manufacturer to see if a
profile is available for your particular model. This makes it much
easier to get correct refresh rates. Many times windows will have
monitor settings stored in the cab files but doesnot always recognize
the right one.
Good luck.

Thanks to all that replied. It was much appreciated.

I did install the card this evening. I did basically exactly what you most
said. I did however, uninstall the onboard via the device manager. But as
others have said, I believe that when I installed the card in the slot, it
disabled the onboard card. I also went to the bios and made the AGP/onboard
the primary setting.

I had no problems at all with one minor exception. I ran a utility called
PC check on the ATI drivers. It keeps saying that I have not installed
DirectX properly. It says that I need to Re-install DirectX8.1. I have
re-installed the drivers. I also had downloaded the latest ATI drivers
earlier and installed them.

I am running an HP Pavilion 325c, AMD 2400XP+, 1 gig ram, WinXP home.

Any thoughts?

Darrell

"Dragon" wrote in message
...
Darrell Dorsey wrote:
I'm running a Pavilion 325C with AMD 2400 XP and WinXP.

I have a Crucial ATI 9100 128mb video card on the way. I want to get
things
lined up. After a lot of searching I have not found a definitive on how
to
disable the onboard video. HP's site says use the device manager and
BIOS
for this. But the only thing I see in the BIOS is where the AGP slot is
made primary over the PCI slots. Maybe the onboard card is sort of PCI
slot.

So for, what I believe I should do is:

1. Uninstall the onboard video via the Device manager.
2. Install the new card
3. Go into the bios and set the AGP card as primary
4. Start-up the machine
5. Install the ATI 9100 drivers.

Does this sound correct. I wonder if I should install the ATI 9100
drivers
after step 1 (uninstall the onboard drivers).

One other question, how do I maintain any video when I have uninstalled
the
onboard video and not installed the ATI drivers or the ATI card.

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Darrell


Darrell,in a lot of boards just plugging an addon into the agp slot will
disable the onboard automatically. If so, your onboard will disappear
from device manager on its own. If not,check in the bios for an
enable/disable setting--your mobo manual should show this under bios
settings.Third option baring any of the above is to uninstall as you said.
As soon as you plug a board in a slot Windows will boot with
generic drivers (usually lowest color,lowest resolution) so you will be
able to see what you are doing.
Check the home site for your monitor manufacturer to see if a
profile is available for your particular model. This makes it much
easier to get correct refresh rates. Many times windows will have
monitor settings stored in the cab files but doesnot always recognize
the right one.
Good luck.