Pretty rudimentary question but I've never asked it.

I have a monitor jack point on my motherboard
I have an AMD graphics card installed.

Can I just change the adapter tyhpe option to AMD through Windows
Or do I also have to plug into the back the video card to get full use from it?

I kinda suspect that if the adapter is set to my card, my mobo will disregard onboard and draw from
my card's GPU.

You have to plug your monitor into the separate graphics card in order to use it. It can't pipe the signal through your onboard GPU.

Edit: To the best of my knowledge ;-)

This.

If you are plugging it into the discrete graphics card and not getting output, you may need to go into the BIOS and change the Primary Display Adapter to "PCI" or something similar.

For some of the other posters, it is possible to render on the discrete card and output through the onboard chipset. That's how NVIDIA Optimus works and this can be emulated using VirtualGL.

Two GPU's 1. Onboard Intel 2. PCI-E AMD
I'm not so sure the jack point is exclusive to the onboard card.
Like if switched GPU drivers in Windows options, even though connected through the mobo, it might still ignore onboard and pull straight from AMD, by passing the onboard's GPU and throuugh the mobo just as if the mobo was pulling only from AMD normally.

Guess I'll have to try. If I can't run Skyrim that way, then I know I'll have to plug directly into the video card itself.

Oh. Never knew about that before. But the OP's said it is AMD graphic card.. is it also possible ? Yes. Just try it if it is possible using AMD graphic card.. If it doesn't works, just simply switch the jack to the GPU.

AMD hates Win 8. The Catalyst Clean Up tool (optional from standard uninstall) corrupted the crap out of registry hive.

Seeing as Win 8's idea of 'Formatting' is just cramming everything in a 'Windows Old' folder, I was having issues anyway after my format a week or two ago.

I'm now up and running again but haven't had a chance to flash the latest BIOs upgraded for my mobo and AMD drivers conflict.

This results in the monitor losing signal during boot which means that if I have access Safe Mode or BIOs, I have to turn the PC around swap the monitor plug from the back of the video card to the onboard whenever I need to reboot into Safe Mode.

Anywho, I'm lazy and figured if I could just do the monitor plug swapping via Windows Options it would make life a wee bit easier.

If you haven't changed your primary graphics from IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) to PCI or PCI-E in the BIOS, Windows will see the IGP as the first "graphics card" and use it for Safe Mode. In safe mode, the AMD drivers wouldn't be used anyway (it'll be using VESA drivers). If you make the change in the BIOS, Windows should still use the discrete card, but with the VESA drivers, so you don't have to keep changing.

Without knowing what motherboard you have, I can't be exact, but you should be able to find the Primary Graphics Adapter setting in Advanced Settings -> Southbridge Chipset.

If you have already changed it, but are still having the signal switch between IGP and discrete during boot, you could always grab a switcher (or using the one on your monitor, if it has multiple inputs!). Then switching is a button away!

I stand corrected then ;-)

Thanks for the info..I've been fishing Control Panel for the past hour looking for the adapter options and you just confirmed them in BIOs.

Alright...gonna try this and will report back with results.

I will add this for consideration, I always "disable" the on-board graphics card in BIOS, shut down, install the PCI-e card, reboot, install drivers for the PCI-e card.

I have not upgraded a Win 8 machine but found that some systems are confused by the two active GPUs. If not disabled in BIOS windows would find the on-board and load drivers for it. Disabling the on-board in Device Manager also works but I prefer disabling the graphics I don't intend to use in BIOS as that seems to remove all problems for Windows finding and using the correct card. It also frees up the resources used for loading drivers for the unused on-board card.

This is what happened. I actually had it working as I wanted it to but the next boot Win diddled something and started tangling the adapters.

Good news was that I found where BIOs was keeping the default GPU option and switching it on PCI-E and plugging into the card directly now allows me to see the boot up screen.

Bad news is I tried to manually update 8 while it was auto updating (apparently) and the mess has led to what is now my third formatting today.

Also 8 has NET 4.0 built in but Steam is requesting 3.5. I can't remember if I ignored the request last time or not. Anyone here using 8 and Steam?

One other thing....8 seems to be using some Cloud. My second format was a refresh and it put back the wallpaper i had originally before the first format today - I can only assume 8 stores some stuff in a cloud? I'm going to research how to turn that feature off....seems to happen only with a refresh. Damn good way to come back to a virus after a complete format.

Yeah, for you who have not upgraded...stick with 7. It looks pretty solid now that Linux will be taking over in the next few years.

[url=]http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officesetupdeploy/thread/0e840d9d-c8c0-4e0b-8620-7e9adc3b4d8d[/url]

Skydrive = For sharing all those things you do not want your business to share with everyone!

I'm not using 8 atm but from what I've read it just associates certain things with your Microsoft account, background etc.

I'm not sure if it could be considered an attack vector, I guess it depends on settings - this page shows an example of the sync settings including the background thing.

I'm betting with all bets that it's serving as the new hidden folder for incriminating DoD data. I noticed 8 went into a long 'Auto Repair' session on next boot when I deleted my Windows.old folder and some other one starting with "$_ "

Those folders where new after my first format and pretty large in size.

For the price they charge us for this shit we should have some control over what they're doing with our PCs.

If the whole intention of the PC nowadays is to come back going "Nanny nanny boo boo look at all the naughty we found on your drive!" give me system free and I'll fill it up with all kinds of scary shit for ya.