Unable to Disable On-board Graphics and Use My Pci-e Video Card

[seanmorr]

I have a Compaq Presario CQ5320F. It has a m2n68-la narra 6 motherboard in it made by pegasus (asus). I recently purchased an ATI Radeon HD 4890 video card, and a 600w psu. I'm running windows 7 64bit, and my BIOS version is 5.20.

the issue i'm having is with disabling the on-board graphics on the motherboard. I'm fairly certain I installed the new video card in the correct manner. After installing the 600w power supply and getting it up and running, I went into safe mode to disable the on-board graphics driver. I then shut down my pc and inserted the new video card into my one and only PCI-E slot. upon booting the computer back up, instead of the plug-n-play working, the computer continued displaying on the on-board graphics. I then rebooted again, and went into my BIOS. I went to my primary graphics controller setting, and switched it to PCI-E, saved and exited. The motherboard STILL chose to display on the on-board graphics. I then shut the computer back down, removed the new video card, and decided to start over after removing my CMOS battery for a good minute or two. The same issue happened. My motherboard isnt capable of displaying on both the on-board graphics and the new graphics card, so i know i have to get the on-board graphics disabled before i can use the new card somehow. I've contacted HP and Asus both in an attempt to get a different version of BIOS that will actually do what I tell it to do, but according to both sources, there is neither an update available for my version, nor is there an older version of bios i can install on my motherboard.

im absolutely lost at what to do here. My last resort will be sending the tower back to HP and having them replace the motherboard in hopes that the problem lies within my BIOS or PCI-E slot, since it is still under warranty. I would be extremely frustrated though to pay for shipping to send it to them, only to have the problem remain once i recieve the computer back. If anyone has any ideas on how i may be able to fix this issue without having to send my pc back to HP, i would greatly appreciate it.

[jamezz]

Hi,

(dont mean to state anything obvious but are you sure that the card is in correctly, sorry but it wouldn't be the first time i've seen it)

What happens when you go to device manger? can you see that your card is there? have you tried disabling the bga from there?

You may need to work out if there is a fault with either the pci express slot or even with your card.
Do you have anything else thats pci-e, such as a sound card or network card if you havnt then ask around, someone will normally have one somewhere, even see if you can borrow one for a few minutes from a friends pc or something. As long as your pc picks it up then you know that your mobo is fine.
Ah just thought of something, are you plugging your monitor into the dvi ports on the card? You need to stay clear of vga to the mobo, windows 7 is clever at detecting things like that.

[seanmorr]

hey, thanks for the reply i appreciate it

when i go to device manager, it never shows the 4890, just the integrated nvidia chipset that houses my on-board graphics. ive already tried disabling the onboard graphics via device manager to no avail. This card was purchased from a friend, and i both saw and used his machine with this card running perfectly fine in it.

as for dvi/vga, the card is DVI. my monitor is VGA, however i was able to purchase a 'DVI to VGA' adapter from best buy. i was told that this wouldnt be an issue as long as i had the adapter for the plugs.

[jamezz]

See what confuses me about this is that your computer isnt even seeing the card. I assume you dont have any unknown devices showing up in the device manger as you would of mentioned it.
I would honestly look if the card is in correctly.
Unistall any catalist software and drivers for the card then turn of your machine. Take out the card, make sure theres no dust in the pci slot and install the card again, while you shouldn't be hard with it, sometimes it can take a fair amount of pressure for the card to sit in the right position, it only has to be a mill or 2 out and it can have adverse effects.
restart your machine go to devmgmt.msc if the bga is still showing up under display adapters disable it and scan for hardware changes under actions, if it still doesnt show i would probably have a go at reinstalling all the software again. Drivers will not normally install if the program cant find the hardware. If non of that works you need to test that the pci slot is working as i said in the last post. The dvi-vga adapter shouldn't be a problem.
Another thing to check is that you have your psu connected to the card properly.
Try that and let us know how you get on