Diable on-board graphics first or not?

[windlake0787]

Hello Everyone ..this Forum seems to have some excellent people giving good advice, which for a novice like me is ideal ! I hope someone can just give me an opinion before I go fiddling with stuff I know nothing about!

My son has kindly given me an almost new BFG Nvidia 7900GS OC graphics card to install on my PC (an Acer T180 running Windows Vista).

I've read the installation instructions but have also been doing some research, and I'm getting conflicting advice.

According to the instructions, I am told to disable the on-board graphics device (Nvidia 6100) and turn off PC before installing the new one.

This instruction makes me a bit nervous as I'm thinking that once I disable it, I will lose any display ..so how then do you get to the 'shut down PC' tab?
Secondly, if I make some kind of error adding the new graphics card, I will have no display to help me re-enable the old one ..hope you understand where I'm coming from on this !

I have read elsewhere that Vista will automatically disable the on-board one if I do not disable it manually first.

I would much appreciate anyone's opinion and advice.

Regards
Doug G

P.S. I have obtained a better power supply of 450W to replace the standard 250W one.

[VulcanX]

Ok basically what you gonna do, power the system down, then plug the card in, and switch her back up, plugging the VGA(monitor) connector into the graphics card, not onboard... and switch her back up, it should switch over automatically... if it doesnt switch over you gonna have to either reset the CMOS, take battery out or just revert to onboard and enter the BIOS and select primary display adapter to PCIe or AGP or whatever necessary... then once in windows it was say found new hardware, you then need to install new drivers for that specific model of your graphics card, you need to go to nvidia.com and get them...
Hope that makes it clearer, and dont worry, if anything happens and you lose display, take the battery out on the motherboard... and it will reset it, but take out the battery for 10 secs if you lose display totally...

[#43 fan]

You don't need to pull the CMOS battery, just move the jumper that does the reset CMOS (AKA BIOS). That should do the same thing as removing the battery.
Also you should keep the jumper over for 10 seconds.

[windlake0787]

Thank you Vulcan X & #43 fan for your prompt replies which I eagerly found upon my return home.

After reading your posts, I went ahead and simply installed the graphics card without disable of existing on-board. Phew ..that was simple enough ..Vista recognised it and has indeed made it the default card, with the old one not showing up in the devices menu. So all has gone well!
Thank you ..much appreciated.

Regards
Doug G