7950 Rig with Display Questions

[cryptopi]

I thought recently I would get into mining (altcoins) via gpu. All of my parts came in a couple of days ago. I am using a gigabyte motherboard with an ivy bridge processor coupled with a few 7950 sapphire gpus. When I finally assembled the rig, I was dismayed to see that my monitor was not being fed correctly (no picture). I have a vga monitor plugged directly up to the motherboard and an hdmi monitor plugged into a 7950.

The problem I am having is as follows:
I read that I have to disable integrated graphics on the motherboard to get the gpus to work. Once I have done that, neither of the displays is fed a picture so I can't see anything. If I make integrated graphics be on auto, then it the displays still do not work. If I switch integrated graphics to enabled, then the vga display (plugged directly into the motherboard) turns on because the internal graphics are powering the display. I am using Windows 8 and when I go into devices, I can see the card in devices, but how can I test the card to see if I actually have access to it? Since the display is being fed by internal graphics and not the 7950, I do not know if I really have access to the card and would like to know how I can confirm that I have access to the card.

Thanks so much

[Philj6970]

The best test you can do to see if the card will mine would be to go to www.bitminter.com and create an account.

You can use the software that is supplied by the pool, its the easiest start anyone could find.

Even though it will only mine bitcoins, it is a good test for your rig.

You dont need to be getting a display from a video card to be able to mine with it.

I have a PC video card in my Mac Pro that mines for me, and it has never been attached to a monitor, the other video card in my Mac does that for me.

You should be able to use only the motherboard video with no problems.

Dont forget you will still need to load the drivers for the other video cards though.

edit:

Is your power supply up to the job? You need about 200 watts per card and at least 200 watts for the motherboard.

Just work with one card at a time, add another when you have the simpler setup running.

[tolip_wen]

Disclaimer: not runnin windoze

If your BIOS is set to AUTO display try unplugging the VGA from the motherboard and reboot. You should see the POST (Power On Self Test) from the BIOS before it even begins to load the OS.

If your monitor has multiple inputs triple check that you have the correct input selected.

As stated above you can mine on an AMD GPU with no monitor connected.
If your OS see's the card you should be good to go.

Hope this helps

[HellDiverUK]

So what is it you want to do?  Do you want to use the GPU's display output?

I'm running an i3-3225 and a pair of 7950.  The 7950 cards have nothing plugged in to them.  I only use the HD4000 iGPU for display.  I can run up to 3 displays off the iGPU without using the 7950 cards.

To get this to work, set the primary display adapter as the iGPU in the BIOS.  You don't want PEG or Auto.  You want to set the iGPU as primary.

[cryptopi]

Thanks