Change Graphis Card

Sorry for this but I have a really stupid question.

I'm trying to isolate a problem with my display. (After a very long time idle, the system seems to go to sleep and won't wake up even though the "Sleep" setting is "Never").

I've done a lot of testing and haven't found the problem yet. I suspect that the problem is my graphics card but want to prove it before I invest in a new one.

My mother board (ASUS CM6870) has a DVI port but the system came with a graphics card (NVIDIA GT640).

I want to remove the NVIDIA card and connect the monitor to the DVI port on the MB to see if that resolves the problem. My BIOS (AMI ver 2.20.1208) Graphics Configuration has 3 options (Auto, iGPU, PCIE). It is set to Auto. I physically removed the NVIDIA card and connected the monitor to the onboard DVI but I get no picture. Given the "Auto" setting, I would have expected the system to recognize the monitor on the onboard port. I'm worried that if I change the BIOS setting to iGPU and it doesn't work that I'll have no way to see the BIOS settings to change it back to Auto.

I've checked the motherboard manual and it provides instructions to connect the monitor to either the graphics card or the onboard DVI port. Therefore, I believe that the onboard DVI port should work.

Therefore, my stupid question. .....
If I change the BIOS Graphics Configuration setting to "iGPU" and it doesn't work, is there any way to get the setting back to "Auto" so that the graphics card will work?

What kind of cable are you using to attach the monitor to the DVI connection? Pure DVI? Or DVI to HDMI adapter?

Also, the DVI port on the mother board should work all the time, especially at the auto setting. If you are worried about changing the graphics port to iGPU, if it doesn't work, you can always reset the BIOS using the BIOS reset jumper on the main board and that will bring you back to defaults where everything works again.

Also, in BIOS, make sure that your system is set to wake on keyboard or mouse. Usually the space bar or left mouse button should wake it up if that setting is set properly.

It could be a power issue as well. That power supply could be a little beefier, like maybe 450 or 500 Watts. Just a suggestion though.

Catnip said:

What kind of cable are you using to attach the monitor to the DVI connection? Pure DVI? Or DVI to HDMI adapter?

Also, the DVI port on the mother board should work all the time, especially at the auto setting. If you are worried about changing the graphics port to iGPU, if it doesn't work, you can always reset the BIOS using the BIOS reset jumper on the main board and that will bring you back to defaults where everything works again.

Also, in BIOS, make sure that your system is set to wake on keyboard or mouse. Usually the space bar or left mouse button should wake it up if that setting is set properly.

It could be a power issue as well. That power supply could be a little beefier, like maybe 450 or 500 Watts. Just a suggestion though.

Sorry for the delay in responding but the problem is resolved. I'm frustrated because, I don't know what caused or resolved the issue.

-I was using a pure DVI cable.
-I swapped video cards with another computer and the problem stayed with my computer. Therefore, the video card was OK.
-I changed from a DVI cable to an HDMI cable. This seemed to resolve the issue but every time I clicked on a link to a video, the screen blanked out for a couple of seconds before showing the video that was already a couple of seconds into playing. (Probably a handshake issue)
-because the above was so annoying, I reverted back to the DVI cable and now everything is working perfectly.

The only thing that I can rationalize is that the DVI connection at the monitor was the issue. However, this doesn't make sense to me.

In any case the issue is resolved. Thank you for your input.