# How to disable onboard vga?  Video Card (AGP) Motherboard Issue



## yochaigal

hello! I need to to find out how to disable an onboard VGA adapter. I recently purchased this motherboard, a L7VMM. AMD K7 1.4ghz T1600. I've been trying to install an AGP Video Card (ASUS 9550 128mb). The onboard video card is a ProSavage3. It should, for all I know default to the AGP, but it doesn't. Essentially, the process goes is this: I uninstall my old card (the onboard) in windows. I disable it, too. Then I shutdown, plug the AGP in, reboot, and viola, it works. I install the drivers, and everythin seems peachy. BUT when I shut down the PC, that's when the trouble starts. I come back later to boot it up again, and there's no screen. It just says "no signal." It does this for the old card, too. I've tried other monitors, same situation. After I remove the the AGP card, it works fine again.

I've tried to disable it from the motherboard and the bios.
It doesn't work----- I'm to understand that this particular motherboard has NO jumper for disabling the onboard card. The bios is also missing an option like that. There is a "Shared Video Memory" option, but I can't set it to zero.

I've tried dumping the cmos memory, I've flashed new bios (there were a number of new options available after this), read the manual, configured it to exactly "how it should be" and it still doesn't work!

Let me re-explain:
    With the onboard savage3 installed and running, everything is fine. I check device manager, and then right-click to disable it/uninstall it (i've tried both). It asks to restart. I do. Then, the machine re-boots into xp, finds the vga card, yada yada and asks me to help it find drivers. I say no thanks, shut the computer down. I install the AGP card. I reboot. This time, everything works. The screen comes up, XP loads, it asks for the drivers for the AGP card, etc. Everything installs fine. the card works fine.
    I restart the machine. I enter BIOS, set it to initial-on AGP (not PCI), I enable PnP. I save and exit. Everything works fine, XP loads. then I shut down the machine. I turn it on again, but now NEITHER the AGP or the onboard WORK!!! the monitor comes up with "no signal." I shut it down, unplug the AGP Card, lo and behold: the original onboard vga works. I'm back at square one. It seems like the mobo lets the AGP take over, just once. I don't know... I've seen a lot of posts saying to set the BIOS Shared Video Memory to 0, but there is no option for zero, just 32, 16, 8, or 4mb.
    I'm sure my cmos battery works, I've read the manual for the mobo, I know I've set the BIOS correctly.
    Oh, and the onboard uses the AGP bus, not the PCI.

thanks I hope someone can make some sense of this.


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## Arm_Pit

Disabling it from the bios should work, try replacing the battery on the motherboard.


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## The_Other_One

Disable it in the bios and be sure the AGP slot is set to the primary video card.


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## PC eye

Now that the AGP card is out find the setting in the bios to enable/disable the onboard. Once you have disabled it press F10 to save the new setting if you can do this on the board there or press the escape key and choose the exit and save option. Once you exit the bios the screen may go blank. Simply shut the system down then and install the AGP card. When powering up you should see the video now being displayed. Verify the PCI/AGP is set to AGP.


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## yochaigal

well that's thing:
I've replaced the CMOS battery. TWICE.  There is NO setting in the CMOS to disable the onboard graphics adapter. NONE. there is no jumper on the mobo, either.  There is a "PCI or AGP" option. But this doesn't help. I mean, the onboard vga is on the AGP bus, anyways.
So yeah--- i've tried all those reccomendations a thousand times over.  Nothing seems to work!  It just boots up, (after I reset the CMOS with AGP card out) works fine, then when I shut it down, it just doesn't boot up again!  It just sits there, ossilating between the two cards.  I can tell it's not running post, by listening to it.

I've posting at computing.net, here's the link if anyone's interested. thanks so far everybody!
http://computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/45348.html


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## diduknowthat

Try disabeling it through windows, that's what I had to do with my emachine


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## leetkyle

If this is a pre-made company manufactured system, it should in theory work fine.. although in some occasions the AGP slot isn't set to primary in BIOS (i think someone mentioned it already?).


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## Redbull{wings}

dont restart?


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## yochaigal

So some more ideas---
I can get it to restart now, each time. But it's no where near fixed.  What I do is, I pull the Powerchord out from the back of the chassis.  Then I plug it back in, and it boots up (most of the time).
What does that mean? Could this be a power problem, or not?
Also, I was thinking of changing the IRQ of the AGP Card to a lower number. Would that make any difference?


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## SirKenin

Nope.  First, those settings in the BIOS do NOTHING to disable the onboard VGA..   As you've figured out.  They have nothing to do with it and there should be a law against suggesting it.  lol  Setting the aperture to zero?  Like... what the hell?  

Like you mentioned, some older boards have a jumper on the board to do it, but I haven't seen a board like that in years and years.  It's typically automatic.

I have run across a couple of machines like yours over time, and the only solution was to let the onboard install itself and then disable it in the Device Manager, then install your AGP and drivers.

You can try setting it to PCI in the BIOS to get it to start with the AGP VGA, but I doubt it will work.  All that will happen is that you get a blank screen until Windows initializes the video.  It's a crappy compromise, but there's not much else you can do with it.


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## PC eye

Upon removing the battery to clear the cmos the factory default should be seen as PCI not AGP with the onboard enabled. Have you gone through the advanced chipset section and others thoroughly? The user's manual for the ECS L7VMM board can be downloaded from http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/manual_l7.html


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