Need advice to run GPU card on "new" mobo

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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Hi, I have an older Gateway P4 S478 system I just upgraded the mobo and CPU on. However, the mobo wants to run it's on-board graphics instead of my GPU card. Also, the sound (on-board) isn't wanting to work either.
The mobo is an Aopen MX4SGI-4DN2, and the GPU card is a Sparkle/NVidia GeForce 8400 GS.
I have tried different settings in the BIOS, but none seem to work. I must be missing something! All else seems to be working just fine, just the GPU card and the on-board sound. I was previously using the DVI input on the card to the Acer LCD monitor. The on-board graphics is VGA.
BTW, the Device Manager recognizes both the GPU card and the on-board graphics, and says both are working properly-of course, they're not!
Any ideas would be real welcome - Thanks!
 

DesiPower

Lifer
Nov 22, 2008
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I think you need to disable the onboard in the BIOS. once disabled it should not show up in hardware manager at all. On many mobos, unless you disable, it wont let you use add-ons.

No idea about sound, sounds like driver issue, reinstall driver or find a undated one maybe...
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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I did not see an option in the BIOS to specifically disable the onboard, but there is that option in the Device Manager. I was a little leery to do that, being a little fearful of being left "blind" once disabled, but I thought I'd try that if I had to and if worse came to worse I could just re-set the CMOS and defaults, and start over.
I'll check all the BIOS options again, I've definitely got to get it working, the onboard doesn't even come close in graphics quality to that NVidia GPU.
Kind of different on the onboard audio, that's what I've always used. I'll re-check the drivers and see if there's anything else that looks out of place.
Thanks for the suggestions.
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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Did you do this swap on an existing installation of Windows?

Yes, had Windows 7 installed on the 250 GB IDE HDD. It had already been running the NVidia GPU card as the previous mobo did not have onboard graphics.
I just tried disabling and then uninstalling the onboard graphics from within Device Manager, then had only the NVidia card hooked up with the DVI cable. Still wouldn't work, and when I plugged up the VGA cable to the onboard VGA, the darn thing showed that it had re-installed itself in the Device Manager!
I've checked all through the BIOS, there just doesn't appear to be any menus that give a straightforward option of disabling the onboard graphics. But there's GOT to be a way to do it! What the heck am I missing?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,570
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If both are active in Device Manager in Windows 7, then what about selecting one of them as the primary (desktop) display device. Surely there must be some way of doing that, although I don't know where that setting might be offhand.
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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try reinstalling win7

Hadn't thought of that, but might very well be worth a try. I was also thinking about re-seating the GPU card, 1st re-boot without, then shut down, re-install the GPU card, then re-boot. Had to move it to a different PCI slot already, as it didn't recognize it in the first one I had installed it in. The drivers for it installed successfully after that.
I believe I'll try that, and if that meets with no success, then the W7 re-install sounds like it's worth a try.
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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If both are active in Device Manager in Windows 7, then what about selecting one of them as the primary (desktop) display device. Surely there must be some way of doing that, although I don't know where that setting might be offhand.

I don't recall seeing a menu choice for that, but that is the first thing I'm going to re-check. I agree, you'd think there'd be something like that where it recognizes more than one device.
Failing that, I'm going to try and re-seat the GPU card, and if that doesn't work, I'll try a Windows 7 re-install.
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
10
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Got it! Was in the BIOS after all, hiding in the "Advanced Chipset Features". Found a menu option "Init Disp First", changed it to PCI, and there it was! Next have to check out the audio. It's so much faster now, the new mobo holds 4 GB RAM, and moved up from a P4 1.8 GHz to a 3.2 GHz - didn't expect such a big difference, but wow, it's like a whole new computer! Thanks for all your input guys, much appreciated!
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
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Nope, audio is not working. Device Manager says all is well, power is hooked up, drivers are up to date. Everything else appears to be working fine now, just the audio and that's the last "issue". Just running powered speakers off the Green & Pink cables and the outlets from the onboard audio jacks.
 

DesiPower

Lifer
Nov 22, 2008
15,299
740
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I am not a big fan of onboard audio anyways... always had bad luck with them... I keep couple of generic elcheapo PCI sound cards around for that purpose, if the onboard gives me any grief, I don't waste any time anymore.
 

93BamaGT

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2012
10
0
0
I am not a big fan of onboard audio anyways... always had bad luck with them... I keep couple of generic elcheapo PCI sound cards around for that purpose, if the onboard gives me any grief, I don't waste any time anymore.

Hah!, that sounds like a plan. Don't know if I have much room left on the PCI slots, the GPU takes up quite a bit of space, but I'll keep that in mind as a very viable alternative!