Using PCI video card to 'filter' bios screens

[Ummon]

I tried this on an early P4 with a Radeon 9200se in the AGP slot and an old S3 trio in the second from the top PCI slot, and it wouldn't switch to the AGP when Windows loaded. I did as in the wiki - change to 'PCI' in bios - but it just defaulted to the PCI card, even though the monitor (it was on) was plugged into the AGP card. Also, it made a long beep, then two or three short beeps. No display. Switching the cable to the PCI card did show Windows; and with the monitor plugged into the PCI card on boot, there we no beeps. Anybody have ideas on this?

[northerngames]

did you disbale the pci display in wondows?

 it will keep using it until you disable it under hardware manager.

[abbzer0]

Check in the Bios to see if there is a plug-n-play option.  Additionally, are you positive your system will support multiple video cards?  Generally if everything is setup "standard" a system will pick the pci/isa slot that is in the highest order.  Lowest IRQ/DMA I believe.  Something to check.  Hope you get it working!

[Ummon]

Well, it seemed to output video through the PCI card from the second from the top slot automatically. In any case, the next time around I used an Nvidia 16mb TNT, and I had to mess around with the bios settings - back and forth, weird - then the desktop was set up like there were two displays, but the Nvidia control panel was only showing the AGP card. However, the device manager showed both, and then Windows said the hardware wasn't properly configured and the system needed restarting. Now it's correct and all better. Whatever. In the bios, I have Plug and Play OS to 'yes', and video configuration is set to 'PCI'.

I'm going to leave this computer as-is, but with another I'll see if maybe the first card, the S3 trio, is funky or something.

[northerngames]

did you disbale the pci display in wondows?

 it will keep using it until you disable it under hardware manager.

[Ummon]

I didn't have to. I think Windows just needed to figure things out and then it worked. Additionally, on my newer rig, there's only a choice between 'Internal' and 'PCI/int-vga', so I forewent the the PCI card, switched the bios to 'Internal', then when I got into Windows, looked in the display options and made the external adapter 'primary', whereas the internal was 'default'. So, if you have integrated video, like I did you may be able to use that in the same way as a PCI card.