Going hunting (ob graphics)

[demon]

As some will know I've decided to add a graphics card to my computer and I have got confirmation that it will be arriving sometime tomorrow which will mean that as soon as it's installed I'm going to have to go hunting in the BIOS so that I can turn off the on board graphics chip but I don't know where to start looking and the only option I've seen is the one that stated the amount of system memory that is used by the graphics chip and I know that won't help as the on board chip will still (probably) be detected by windows when I start up everytime.
Any pointers on where I can look for this off switch.

Oh and I can probably guess that this will be a correct installation procedure.....

Remove all power connections (and unplug from mains as well) and remove side panel
Insert new graphics card (remembering to remove the blanking plate first) and make sure that it is seated properly and is secure.
Close case reconnect to mains and turn on (with the monitor still connected to the motherboard) and with hope it'll fire back up.
Once in windows install new drivers and any other software that is supplied whilst removing any offal that is no longer needed and then shut down.
Connect monitor to graphics card and start up this would be to make sure everything is working the way it should and if it does remove all the drivers for the on board graphics and then restart again.
And by now it'll be time to go hunting in the BIOS to completely kill the on board graphics.

[Hanners]

Some BIOSes automatically disable the on-board graphics when they detect a card in the AGP or PCI Express 16x slot.

The other thing to look for is a Primary Display Device setting, which usually lets you choose where the BIOS should look for a graphics card first. If your motherboard does have such a setting, make sure it's looking at the AGP or PCI-E slot first, rather than PCI.

[demon]

I did a quick bit of digging in my BIOS and I did find two things referring to this one was in the general CMOS settings which had a video option which is currently set to EGA/VGA which I think doesn't need to be touched and the other is where all the on board stuff is listed and one option does refer to the display and I think it is set to PCI (but I'll have to check in the morning if I can)

[tlhf]

My old, old computer (cpu: Cyrix 300mhz) understood when it had a "real" graphics card inserted without any additional configuration. I'd guess that contemporary models do as well.

Just put the new graphics card in, it should boot up fine. Maybe just in 640x480 or 800x600 tho. Install new drivers after, reboot and job done. Best to download the latest drivers from the net tho straight off, rather than messing around with older versions on the included CD.

[demon]

Actually I checked the second option out (the one I referred to in my last post) and it's an option called init display first which is currently set to PCI slot which is probably the option that hanners was talking about

[Hanners]

Yep, that's the one - Change that away from PCI to AGP or PCI Express (depending on your system) once you've installed the new video card.

[demon]

Actually tlhf was correct as once the graphics card was installed it didn't send a signal to the on board connection for my monitor although I did the stupid part by not removing the old drivers for the on board graphics as when I tried to agter I installed the new graphics card I got an error stating that there was no HWkey (which I think would refer to the chip that the BIOS has disabled) but I think I can stop the SIStray from starting up with the computer which will cover that but I wouldn't want to try and remove anything else just in case I take out anything vital.

Edit an oh yes just to note from my prior thread on getting my graphics card instead of getting the palit GeForce 7600GS I ordered I got the palit GeForce 7600GS sonic which has faster memory and is a overclocking edition of the card I was meant to get (hats off to scan for doing good for this one)