Onboard used with PCI Express Card?

[MrUziel]

I'm sorry this is such a commonly asked question but I can never get a specific answer for my current situation and was wondering if anyone here could help out.

Basically my situation is I have 2 extra 15" monitors along with my 23" one. I am currently running a GTX460 with a M4A785-m motherboard. My question is, is there a way to use the onboard graphics specifically for those 2 monitors for very low intensity graphics(temperature/cpu monitors, basic internet access, etc.) Or possibly running dual off the 460 and a single off the onboard? The latter seems plausible but I've read so many conflicting stories of onboard graphics working with PCI express cards.

On a side note, I do have one PCI ex1 slot open and if anyone could recommend a cheap card that would accomplish what I just explained above, that would be great. Thanks in advance everyone.

 

[mathew7]

Look in BIos, Advanced Menu, chipset, for 2 options:
- Surround view: Make sure it's "enabled" (I think auto will disable the IGP when you put another GPU)
- Primary video controller: select which GPU will be active at boot (note: windows manages the display itself, so this if just for BIOS).

 

[duxducis]

it should work just fine, one monitor on build in and two with PCI express cards.
also on your motherboard you can use 2 monitors one on DVI or HDMI + one on VGA
so you can run 4 monitors no problems if you want

 

[Supernova1138]

You can't use integrated graphics and discrete graphics simultaneously, not on your board. Right now the only boards that can do that are ones that use intel's Z68 chipset. If you want to run a third monitor you are going to have to get a second video card to drive the third display. PCI-E x1 does severely limit your options though. Looking on Newegg, there are a number of low end cards available in PCI-E x1. Cheapest one I can find on newegg is here., a GT 520. It won't give you gaming performance, but will get you basic display output for a third display. That card does appear to only support 1 display though, so two displays would have to be run on the GTX 460, with the 3rd on the GT 520 in this scenario.

 

[duxducis]

my asus with Chipset AMD 790GX/SB750 can run 2 monitors no problem,
I use 1 DVI from on board plus 2 DVI ports on PCI-E video card simultaneously,
newer had problem with that setup, the only quark is that you can't duplicated to 3rd monitor but i use extend desktop anyway

 

[MrUziel]

Thanks everyone for the responses, I'll try these out when I get home. If I recall however, the surround view option was grayed out and set to Auto. Also, I noticed if I set the integrated graphics as the main, under the windows display adaptors it shows both my 460 and the integrated Radeon 4200 but I still can't select multiple displays using the 460. If I use the 460 as the main, the onboard doesn't show up. Once again, not absolutely positive if I've tried out everything in the BIOS but I'll respond again when I test. Thanks again everyone.

And Supernova113, thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into that if nothing else works.

 

[MrUziel]

I got it working!! I ended up getting the official ATI drivers for the onboard one and it just decided to work after that. My BIOS still has the integrated graphics set as the main and I have two monitors running off the graphics card. I actually can run dual displays from the graphics card and then leave the 460 to do it's own thing, but for right now, everything works and I'm extremely happy. Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions!

Here's a very rough picture of the setup, everything is still messy, but you get the idea

 

[MrUziel]

Best answer selected by MrUziel.