Do you HAVE to have a video card to boot?

[BCinSC]

If I'm only going to be controlling a system remotely, is it possible to do without a video card?

 

[Matthias99]

Well, in theory, there's no reason you should absolutely *need* one (especially in this day of fast networks and VNC), but the BIOS on most PCs will likely not boot up without it there. And I'm almost certain that Windows would refuse to load without something to display on. Maybe a Linux variant, though... dunno. I'd have to do more research.

 

[Sunner]

Get a Sun box, you'll need no GFX adapter

 

[oldfart]

Yup. X86 box needs a video card. Sun can run headless. Throw in an old pci card to make it happy.

 

[BCinSC]

That's what I've been doing, but I've run out of old PCI cards and have a few more systems to bring online. Tinkering with Knoppix to run diskless as well (so far so good). Building a heck of a crack-rack and trying to minimize components and their requisite power usage / heat generation.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Since you are fully remote, you should be able to pick up old pci or agp vga cards for $5 or so from the discount stores. Around me they have boxes of literally hundreds of old POS cards, and I bet you could get a better price buying 3+ at the same time. I would be concerned about it, if anything, due to unreliability of the cards, but it's an option.

One of the reasons that built in vga isn't quite the worst thing in the computing world (it's close though).

 

[BCinSC]

What discount stores?

 

[oldfart]

Hit the FS/T forum and post a WTB: thread. I'm sure you will find what you need.

 

[cyberhh]

I have a Linux server that runs just fine "headless", no x server, but that is not the point. Server 2000 and 2003 WILL run headless if you can get the Windows Server Embedded Toolkit - but you still need a video card to install, then you can remove it and connect to the server through Terminal Services to remotely administrate it.

You can check out the Magnia SG-10 and SG-20 groups on http://groups.yahoo.com for more (though not much more) information.

 

[Ryoga]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlieOne of the reasons that built in vga isn't quite the worst thing in the computing world (it's close though).

Yeah, nevermind that your typical user will never see a difference between an nForce chipset and an ATI X800.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: cyberhh
I have a Linux server that runs just fine "headless", no x server, but that is not the point. Server 2000 and 2003 WILL run headless if you can get the Windows Server Embedded Toolkit - but you still need a video card to install, then you can remove it and connect to the server through Terminal Services to remotely administrate it.

You can check out the Magnia SG-10 and SG-20 groups on http://groups.yahoo.com for more (though not much more) information.

Many (most?) X86 PC's I've seen wont POST without a video card though. BIOS limitation.

 

[CraigRT]

ebay some cheapo vid cards... always handy to have!

 

[tart666]

geeks

brand new ATI cards as low as $12

 

[dudeman007]

Originally posted by: tart666
geeks

brand new ATI cards as low as $12

Nice. Just get a cheapo video card jeez. Not that hard.