Can I use an onboard and pci vga simultaneously?

Question

I have an old machine I'd like to get running with dual monitors. The pci vga only has only 1 output port. However, I have another output via the onboard video card. Can I leverage both video cards to go dual-monitor? How would I set this up?

EDIT: Appears that this is possible but, given the myriad possible combination of mobos and cards, I'll just need to try it.

Solution 1

There is no one answer fits all. I have had motherboards with the same chipset and integrated graphics, but on one it allowed and the other it did not.

Without knowing your motherboard, it is not possible to know - however ask the manufacturer or just try it.

In any case, you will most likely need to set it in the BIOS, you may be able to go in there now and see if there is a "both" option under graphics. Again, there is no one answer fits all and it is different everywhere.

Solution 2

More info would help Motherboard, BIOS, OS, types of cards.

Depends on the motherboard and OS. We have one at work that will work just fine in Windows but once you try to boot up a some what older distribution of Linux it breaks one screen and shows a garbled screen.

Solution 3

My experience has been that not all machines allow two display adapters connected, but assuming the machine boots with both installed and Windows detects both, you're good to go.

Comments

[Dane O'Connor]

Well its good to hear its possible. Looks like I'll just try it.

[davr]

Same here...I had one PC it worked perfectly on, another PC it seemed impossible to accomplish, no BIOS twiddling could get it to enable the onboard video if a PCI video card was inserted.