Tom's Hardware > Forum > Overclocking > General Discussions > How to shut down expensive Video card and use on-board video

How to shut down expensive Video card and use on-board video

Forum Overclocking : General Discussions - How to shut down expensive Video card and use on-board video

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Aviator172   01-03-2006 at 03:39:31 AM

Let's say you have an expensive video card in a computer and you only want to use it (power it up) when you want to play games. Other times, when the computer is being used for business or non-graphics intense purposes, you want to switch over to a cheaper or on-board video thus saving wear and tear on your expensive card...

Is there a way to do this?

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shata   01-03-2006 at 06:39:21 PM
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Um... i dont know how you would do that, but a non overclocked good brand like asus,msi,evga,xfx lasts like 10-16 years if not more...

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TunaSoda   01-03-2006 at 06:48:35 PM
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Quote :

Let's say you have an expensive video card in a computer and you only want to use it (power it up) when you want to play games. Other times, when the computer is being used for business or non-graphics intense purposes, you want to switch over to a cheaper or on-board video thus saving wear and tear on your expensive card...

Is there a way to do this?



Shut the computer off, pull out the nice card, plug the monitor into the onboard video, boot to bios, enable onboard video, start windows

Do this back and forth everytime you need to run a game or an office application... 8O

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EntityAnomly   01-03-2006 at 07:33:17 PM
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Depending on your motherboard, you might be able to specify that both video cards are active at the same time. If that is possible with your board then in Windows you should see two video cards installed in system properties.

Under the display control panel with the two video cards listed you should see multiple displays listed. At that point you should be able to enable and disable the output to whichever monitor you want(this is assuming you have your monitor hooked up to both VGAs).

If your motherboard is not capable of running both video devices at the same time you will have to do what TunaSoda suggested.

Personally I wouldn't worry about it, the games and high graphics are the only things that challenge a high end video card anyway. Regular Windows use should not wear the video card at all.

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Vascular   01-03-2006 at 08:38:27 PM
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Unless you are using an KVM would this be worth it.
The wear and tear of moving the plug would surely outway just using the card.
Never done it before but what if you disable the video card in device manager, would the integrated take over?
Also in some bios there is a way to disable the agp or pci-e slots.

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TunaSoda   01-03-2006 at 08:48:54 PM
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Even with the card disabled, if it's plugged into it's slot, the chip is at idle, the fan (if it has one) is running anyway, there is some sort of "wear & tear" no mater what, unless you pull the card.

I would just use the card all the time if I were you

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gomerpile   01-04-2006 at 03:44:16 AM
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in device manager disable the gcard you dont want to use but driver issues are the problem I currently use 2 with one in the dvi port and the other in the onboard but you have too disable one in the manager.

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Luminaris   01-04-2006 at 09:42:13 PM
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Too funny! Double take on that one! 8O 8O

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RichPLS   01-04-2006 at 09:54:02 PM
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you really should buy more reliable video cards, ya know, like ones that you can use full time! :roll:

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Flakes   01-04-2006 at 10:21:32 PM
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im really confused :? , i understand the question but not the problem?

why would you do any of this pulling out the card everytime is gonna run down the pins, leaving it the fan might fail(OMG!), using both the system will be unstable...im at a total loss why you dont use the one, most GFX cards these days support 2 monitors.

am i missing something or does everyone else feel the same way :?: :?

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