Newbie help - removing sound & video cards and using onboard

[rmbelson]

Hi folks. Can someone point me to instructions on how to remove a sound card and video card and revert to onboard? I'm reworking a used pc for my old man, and want to take out the Audigy 2ZS card and Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT cards. He's 93 and his gaming days are over!!

This is for an XP system and an Asus board, but I don't remember which one.

I seem to remember that for at least some Audigy cards, there are problems removing the drivers, etc. I haven't done this before, and I know there are steps to removing the drivers, booting back in (safe mode?) changing bios, etc. I don't feel like rooting around and making trouble for myself.

I've googled and searched this board for the subject and find lots of instructions on how to put the things in, not about how to do the reverse. Maybe I'm using the wrong search terms.

Thanks

RMB

 

[Paperdoc]

I don't know anything specific for Audigy cards, so someone else will have to help on that. But in general for removing an expansion card and switching to on-barod resources, the sequence would be:

1. With the expantion card(s) installed, go into Start ... Control Panel ... System and select the Hardware tab, then click on Device Manager. Get the list of devices in the system. Right-click on a device (say, the Audigy Sound Card) and select Remove Hardware. Do this again for your GeForce vid card, if you want to do both at once. Exit out back to the Start menu, then shut down.

2. Unplug your machine, open the case, and remove the card(s). Reconnect any lines to speakers, and certainly the video display line, to the mobo connectors on the back panel. Close up and reconnect power.

3. Turn on, and as the machine reboots, enter the BIOS Setup screens, often by holding down the "DEL" key. There you can enable the on-board resources (sound and video), Save and Exit, and it will boot. You may not need to boot into Safe Mode, but it can't hurt the first time around.

3. To boot into Safe Mode, as Windows starts up hold down the F8 key, then choose Safe Mode from the menu. As it finishes booting Windows should detect the new hardware (vid and sound) and load the necessary drivers. If all goes normally, those drivers already will be on your HDD in the right subdirectory, and Windows will find them easily and install. If it can't find them, you may have to insert your original Windows install CD and tell it where to find that CD so it can look there for drivers.

4. If there are more up-to-date drivers available from the mobo's install CD (or, better yet, from the mobo manufacturer's website) for your on-board devices, download them and update the drivers using, again, Start ... Control Panel ... System and select the Hardware tab, then click on Device Manager. This time you right-click on a device, ask for Properties, and there should be a place in there to update the driver to a new one in a location you specify.

5. Get back to Properties again for each on-board device and set it up the way you want.

 

[rmbelson]

Thanks for the advice. I found a program Driver Cleaner Pro that I think goes in and cleans out what needs to go that doesn't get uninstalled in the process you outline.

As it turns out, this mobo doesn't have onboard video. So now my question is, should I keep the nvidia card in or replace it with an old ati radeon 9000 board I have lying around? Which one would I be able to sell better on ebay or wherever? If it's a close wash, I may not go through the bother.

 

[Onus]

I don't think it's worth the bother. It works now, so leave it alone. Neither component is really worth re-using, and you'll hardly get enough for either one on ebay to cover the listing and/or shipping costs.

 

[rmbelson]

Yeah, I agree. I was surprised there was no onboard vid. My older Asus A7N8X deluxe had decent vid.

Now onto my next box -- just bought never used and mostly built Abit system for music client to network in my tunes from main PC.

1. Case. Cooler Master Centurion 5 with clear side panel.

2. Motherboard: Abit AN-M2HD.

3. CPU: AMD X2 BE-2400 2.3GHZ.

4. Memory: 2x1GB (2GB total) Ballistix DDR2 800.

5. Power Supply: Antec true power 480Watts.

6. Came with a small IDE HD, but that may be fine for my use, as I will network in from a bigger system. I did buy a DVDRW drive for it in case I want to run movies from it, as it has HDMI connection.

One problem. The front intake case fan's wiring was too short to hit the mobo. I tried splicing in wiring from another case fan, but the wires are so skinny I can't make it work. Do I need the front fan on this, or can I live without?

Thanks