Display adapter question

Hi there:

I bought a used system on Ebay for a friend (who couldn't afford a new system). Here are the specs:

Pentium II 350
6.4 GB HD
128 RAM
S3 Trio 3D on board video
WME

I am having problems with the display adapter. The system kept freezing on her and at various times when she'd boot it would be in B/W. So I assumed the drivers needed updated on the video. I hit the www.s3graphics.com site and downloaded the drivers. When I got to update them - the system automatically detects a standard graphics VGA card. ?? I've gone into Safe Mode to try to change to the S3 and it keeps telling me the drivers were not meant for this device.

My question is - if I were to purchase a PCI video card (new inexpensive) do I first need to REMOVE from the Device Manager all other Display Adapters, power off, then insert new card and reboot and let Windows find it? I don't want to mess up the system any more than it is!

Thanks!

 

Disabling the onboard video can sometimes be problematic. If there is a choice in the BIOS it is the best bet. The choice is usually AGP to PCI, but your board might not be new enough to have AGP. Grub around the BIOS.

Some MBs have jumpers to disable the onboard video. If you can find out what the MB is you might find some reference to the jumpers on the maker’s site.

Some people have success just disabling the video in device manager by selecting “disable in this hardware profile”, shutting down and installing the new card.

Make sure you can return the card if you can’t get it installed.

Look for something in the driver you downloaded to expand it – like an .exe file. Sometimes pointing the driver install to the folder doesn’t work – you have to get it to the right file. Is there more than one file in the download?

 

Hi. Just as a follow-up - I disabled the standard VGA through the device manager and installed an ATI Rage Xpert 98 and it is working splendidly. Thanks!