So your probably installing a new video card in your system for the first time. Hopefully in a perfect world it will just work from the start and once you get into windows you can install the drivers. Now a days, in most cases, your computer will simply notice that there is a card in the graphics slot and disable the on board video card. Although, in some cases it works, and at the same time, your onboard card is eating up some of your resources.

So first things first, if your getting no display please take this time to double and triple check the back of your computer. Are you absolutely sure that the monitor is hooked up to the correct new VGA/DVI port? Now that you have taken the time to make sure and are positive that it is hooked up to the correct port, given that you still have the no display problem we need to dive into this further. To start out, I'm guessing that you are not getting any display at all. Not even on those very first couple screens when you first hit the power button to turn on your computer. So let me restate this. If you are getting display on a couple screens and it goes black, when you get to windows please see the advice later in this section.

Already at this point it is very likely that it's simply a defective video card. Don't be scared to go back to the store and do a exchange. There are some computers, however, that we need to set the primary display and/or disable the on board video card in the Bios. Simply hook the monitor back up to the on board card. The slot you used to hook your monitor up to on the back of the computer in the past. Let me take the time to simply state that if your computer some how stops working all together it is not my fault. I will not hold responsibility what so ever; this should be done at your own risk. Now that I completely freaked you out with that disclaimer, I am happy to say that there really should be no situation that this happens. However, never say never and I have to play it safe. So you have your monitor hooked up to the original video card. On the very first screen on boot up it may even say hit some key to enter the bios. Be very careful, some computers have a built in system restore processes. That if you hit that key you will simply be reinstalling your entire operating system. This is not at all what you want and it will erase all data on your computer. Now back to the BIOS, in most cases the key is going to be either the funtion 10 key at the top of your keyboard(F10) . Otherwise, it is likely to be the delete key. Try delete first, because in some rare cases F10 is also used for a system restore.

Every Bios is different and there are a bunch of settings in the Bios for all your ports and hardware. In most cases what you are looking for is a section called chipset features or advanced. I am not promising anything though. You may have to look through everything until you find what you are looking for. So in some cases there will be a setting that says onboard video. You will have options for enable/disable. In the Bios you can typically change settings with the page up/page down or +/- keys. There is likely to be an answer key somewhere on the screen that shows you how to do things. Another feature that you want to look for is shared video ram or VGA RAM. If you see that, it is best to put it to the lowest settings. There also may be the disable option that you are looking for. Now that you found what you are looking for and have the on board video card disabled. You have to save the settings and exit. In a lot of cases this is going to be that F10 key again. However, sometimes there is the just the arrows, browse to save and exit then hit enter.

Your computer will restart and you will get no display from the built in video card. It's okay to move the video cable over to the new card while the computer is running. Otherwise, you may have to hurry and hit the power button to shut the computer down so that it does not restart. Then plug the monitor into the new card.

Okay, back to what I was saying earlier. You put your new card in. You see the first couple screens. Then when you get to Windows everything turns black. Stay calm, wait for everything to finish booting up. If you can do it move the video cable back to the original video card. That is if your computer has one. I will get to the other scenario soon. Most likely you are able to see what you are doing again. Log in, wait for every thing to boot up. Go to start, control panel, System, hardware and/or device manager, click the plus sign next to display adapters. Right click on your original video card and click on disable. It will prompt you to reboot. Again you will have a problem with a black screen, this is good. Simply move the video cable back over to the new card and you should be ready to install the drivers.

Now, back to the trouble where you see the first couple screens, then when you get to windows everything goes black. In this case though, you do not have a built in video card to move the cable back to. You may not be completely dead in the water yet. If you still have your old card. You may be able to shut down, take out the new card and put back in the old card. Then visit my section about manually removing your left over drivers. Don't be afraid, your video card will continue to work on some level even with out drivers.