Recently my mother's computer stopped sending a signal to the monitor and we figure the reson is the video card is fried. The monitor still works just fine and I cant think of anything else that would be the problem. The video card is an onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6100 and we just purchased the 7200 version recently. Am i going to have to swap hard drives with another computer so i can play in the BIOs? I am kind of unfamiliar with this process.

YOu wn't have to replace the hard drive. Just press the appropriate button on bootup, usually Delete or F2, it should say, and you should be able to get into the BIOS to disable onboard video.

but if the video card is not working how am i going to be able to see anything to enable or disable things in the bios??

scott middleton said:

ROFL!!!!!!!

You don't need a videocard to see the BIOS.

scott middleton said:

have you tried firing up the system with the monitor plugged into the replacement video card?

No, but he needs some type of video output. If you can, try installing the video card and maybe it'll default to the discrete card instead of the onboard.

weelllll... i have done as suggested, with the monitor plugged into both the old and new cards and still nothing. It is an eMachine and we have another one sitting on their table next to it so i would guess the key to get to the bios would be F2 as it is on the other one??

If the fans are spinning at a low speed it might be the motherboard that's gone bad.


Now I am not sure if this is a laptop a desktop, but if it is a desktop you can pull the small round battery for a few minutes that way the BIOS will get reset and maybe it will switch from onboard to whatever interface you have.