dual display against wishes!

[Callidor]

so my dad's home computer was apparently running abnormally slowly. all the standard things didnt seem to fix anything, so i thought that maybe the very old graphics card had burned out and was causing problems. upon removing it and switching back to integrated graphics, the computer seems to be running fine, save for that the display extends off to the right. initially, i had disabled the graphics card but left it plugged in. i grabbed another monitor and plugged it into the card. (one in card port, one in integrated) sure enough it was running in dual display mode. ive now removed the graphics card altogether, but it still thinks it should be running with two monitors. when i go into display properties -> settings, it's only listing one monitor. (in my previous experiences with this sort of thing, it gave me two, gave me the option of setting which was the primary, and which was the extension etc.)

is there any way i can tell windows that i only want to be using one monitor? also, in the device manager, there's only one monitor listed, and it's just there as default.

 

[PC eye]

You removed the card but did you remove the software and drivers for it? Once you dump a card for onboard you want to remove anything related to the expansion card. The configuration is still set for dual display. The best thing now is to actually remove all video drivers and softwares and allow Windows a fresh detection of the onboard as well as a fresh set of board drivers. That will restore all defaults.

 

[Callidor]

well i went in the hardware manger beforehand and hit "disable" before removing it. should i search for all nvidia related drivers and just chuck em in the trash? how should i let windows do a new detection of the onboard drivers? check them off and then back on in the BIOS settings or something?

 

[PC eye]

If you still have the original software disk for the card you may find an uninstall tool for removing the drivers there. Or if you know the make and model go to the NVidia site for that. The NVidia software is the actual thing that manages multiple desktops. You first want to remove the card's own software there and then see those drivers removed.

The device manager will also list the display adaoters there. You simply right click on the card's own item if seen and choose the uninstall option. If the drivers stick like in some cases then a remover is needed. With those removed along with the software the system will need a restart. If you still see the same problem then you would be forced to remove any video drivers lingering. But the drivers for the onboard are more of a last resort if you still see problems. With all drivers unloaded and gone Windows has to take over with it's own vga set then.