Booting without vid card?

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boobear

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Dec 18, 2005
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I just built a new system, and its all complete except for the video card. im dying to hear it hum, so i was wondering if it would be safe to try to boot without the vid card in place? (no, my motherboard doesnt have onboard video)
 
That really depends on your mobo. Most likely you can get it to "hum," I guess, but don't expect it to do anything like POST. Mostly only server mobos can boot without a vid card in there. Many others just freak out.
 
To my knowledge...no computer can boot without a graphics adapter...server motherboards just have video onboard...

It's safe to turn it on...but all you're going to get is some beeps telling you you're missing your videocard...
 
just turn it on. It's safe. You'll get to hear the fans spin, the psu start and maybe the HDD will make a noise or two. If you don't do it, you'll be kickin yourself until you get the VC in.

You can always buy a cheapo VC (or one you got at home) so you can watch it boot all the way. If you buy a cheapo, they are always good to have around anyway for diagnosing other issues. GL
 
^eMpTy^ said:
To my knowledge...no computer can boot without a graphics adapter...server motherboards just have video onboard...

It's safe to turn it on...but all you're going to get is some beeps telling you you're missing your videocard...
Click to expand...

My Abit BE6-II could boot without a videocard fine. Was using the motherboard in a file server and I could still see/read/write to my shares on it over the network. (it would ping as well). All without a videocard.

I'd imagine not all boards can though.
 
boobear said:
I just built a new system, and its all complete except for the video card. im dying to hear it hum, so i was wondering if it would be safe to try to boot without the vid card in place? (no, my motherboard doesnt have onboard video)
Click to expand...
No videocard means no on-screen display. Just sit tight.
 
There is no chance it will POST. You wil hear some fan spinning and loud beeping. That's about it.
 
^eMpTy^ said:
To my knowledge...no computer can boot without a graphics adapter...server motherboards just have video onboard...

It's safe to turn it on...but all you're going to get is some beeps telling you you're missing your videocard...
Click to expand...

Right, but with many server mobos you can disable integrated video and it will still boot...
 
You best bet is to boot it with a borrowed card.
If you have a PCI card, it might work, but it must be PCI 2.xxx compliant for it to work in almost any modern motherboard.


^eMpTy^ said:
To my knowledge...no computer can boot without a graphics adapter...server motherboards just have video onboard...
Click to expand...



Lets expand your knowledge.

Any motherboard that has an option in bios to ignore errors on boot will boot and run fine without a video card. I have ran multiple systems as server headless this way...you only need a video card to load the OS and make the bios setting, once you done...it's all up to you.

As for servers: You won't hardly find a unix server that has a video card, well, except for homegrown unix machines, but definitely not Sun or HPUX (but you can buy an adaptor for them, it typically requires a set refresh/resolution monitor) and not IBM AIX servers. Both the Sun and HPUX machines use nothing more than a serial port connected console (a Dumb Terminal or null cable and hpyerterminal is commonly used to install and configure OS)
 
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