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How to truly tell if a motherboard has an integrated video chipset

Tags:
  • Chipsets
  • Video
  • AMD
  • Motherboards
  • Display
Last response: in Motherboards
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September 23, 2014 8:41:12 AM

Hello to everyone.

Recently I put together a media server for a friend and came up against some difficulty when it came to getting an output display (POST, go to BIOS). The links to the components discussed are as follows:

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 750K - 3.4 GHz - 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 4 MB Cache, Socket FM2
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...


Motherboard:
Biostar AMD A85X Motherboard - MicroATX, Socket FM2, AMD (Hi-Fi A85S3)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

When reviewing this motherboard and its specifics it stated that video output was "integrated". This led me to believe that when combined with the CPU, the motherboard would have video capability. Unfortunately this was not the case. We tried both the HDMI and the VGA outputs and could not get any type of display. The only thing we could think of was that the motherboard was bad (since all the fans turned on, but no display was given) so we even RMA'd the original board out and received a replacement. The replacement motherboard yielded the same results with the display.

My friend also had a local computer company run a diagnostic on the computer which didn't provide any additional detail as to why we couldn't a display other than the assumption that there was an issue with the motherboard or processor.

We were able to resolve the output issue by plugging in a video card into the motherboard. Once this was done, we received a display and was able to then continue with the installation process of the OS. So at this point I am assuming that there was nothing wrong with the motherboard or the processor in the first place.

At this point I have the following questions that hopefully someone may be able to answer, as I believe information related to integrated graphics on motherboards are now getting more and more convoluted now that AMD have processors that are somewhat doubling as graphical processors as well (according to AMD).

1. Does this motherboard truly have stand alone video capability when combined with the CPU? If no, then why did the motherboard come standard with a VGA and HDMI port for output?

2. Does the new AMD CPUs that state they have video or graphics capability have to be combined with a video / graphics card to get output? At this point I am assuming the answer is yes, but AMD definitely doesn't clarify this in their information.

3. In the future, should I make sure that I find some type of "onboard" video or graphics chip if I want video capability from just a motherboard / CPU combination? In my past builds finding a graphics chip on the motherboard from a brand name (nvidia, ATI) were successful.

Again thank you in advance for reading this post, and for any additional information that will clarify this situation.



More about : motherboard integrated video chipset

September 25, 2014 10:27:19 AM

Ok. Thank you for the additional information.

So to clarify this example, if I would have bought the following CPU:

AMD A4-7300 3.8GHz - Frequency 3800MHz, Turbo 4GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 65 Watt, Radeon HD 8470D, Socket FM2 Processor
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

This one would have had onboard video capabilities due to having the Radeon HD 8470D assoc. with the processor.

This processor:

AMD A Series A4-6300 - 3.7 GHz - 2 Cores - 1 MB Cache - Socket FM2
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

Would have done the same thing the initial CPU did, which is not have any video capabilities.

Am I correct in these assumptions?
Related resources
a b À AMD
a c 103 V Motherboard
September 25, 2014 2:03:36 PM

all A series are APU which have integrated gpu
on the A4-6300 click on the spec it said
AMD Radeon HD graphics; achieve stunning visual appearance without any flaws
September 25, 2014 3:26:42 PM

Yeah, I took a look at that and sure enough it has a Radeon graphics processor related to it. For some reason I thought the Athlon II processor had the same thing, and it just wasn't the case. Lesson definitely learned on this build. Hopefully this conversation will help others who may have had the same questions I did.

Thanks again :-)
!