Add a second video card???? Different brand and type.

[RichU]

I may be trying something "wrong." I currently have an ATI ALL-inWonder HD tuner/video card that works fine and plays well with NPVR, for OTA TV. It is PCI-E, and replaced a cheap ATI video card. I use the HDMI out often to "pipe" output to my real TV, a Sony 40" flatscreen. Works nicely. NPVR works great after my learning curve, especially getting TV listings through zap2it, which still works. Win XP, 4600Gig dual-core AMD CPU and "4 Gig" RAM. (Note: the Catalyst Media Center program that came with the card sucks - loses channels and settings - pain in the ass that I left behind for better programs, like GBPVR and NPVR.)

I was hoping to hook up a second monitor, to expand monitor space, not for TV use. My MSI M/B only has one PCI-E slot, so I got a relatively cheap GeForce 8400GS card (NVIDIA, not ATI) with both DVI and VGA out, which means I could use my old, smaller VGA flatscreen for more monitor space.

Have I "violated the rules" so far? Different cards and connections to M/B? My Internet searches suggest maybe.

Anyway, I tried it once and it kind of worked but I had some problems. I reverted to a backup and for now it's like I never tried it.

Here's what I recall. Adding the 2nd card actually seemed to go OK. Hardware in fine. And I think I got the software drivers stuff in OK as well. I was then able to extend the desktop to the second monitor, and they "identified" as 1 and 2 on screen when I queried. I thought I was in fat city!

But when I rebooted I repeatedly got a Windows New Hardware window....darn it. Looking in Control Panel. I had an unknown device. Not sure quite which. Then, I realized that in NPVR, I could no longer access Live TV - something like can't find tuner filter. Damn. But the Device was still listed correctly in NPVR's settings.

I unseated the new card, and a reboot or two resulted in a corrupt Windows config file. Cascading failures as seems to occur when panicking over a Windows problem. So I bailed completely. Used Acronis to revert to a backup of a day or two earlier. Whew - back to normal.

But I'd still like to add the second monitor and video card if I can. I plugged the new, 2nd video card in once....New Hardware Window...cancelled ,but I did NOT put in the GeForce driver CD. I just tried NPVR Live TV. It said something like can't find the tuner device...not the filter reference from earlier, I think. But Settings-Devices still showed the ATI tuner. So I unseated the second card again. After I think 2 reboots, I was back to normal.

I'll try again in a day or two, AFTER I do another full system backup, just in case.

So after this long description, sorry, am I tilting at windmills? Does Win XP, or NPVR, get "confused" when adding the second video drivers, or what? NPVR Settings-Device still showed the "ATI BDA Digital Tuner" info that it usually shows. Some web searching suggests that one should remove video drivers before adding a new card and drivers. Some suggest that only similar cards can be used, perhaps so they share the same drivers?

Thanks, and I hope I'm not wasting your time!

[johnsonx42]

while it's technically possible, it can be very troublesome to get both an ATI and NVidia graphics card to work side by side. You will likely have more success if you get an ATI/AMD card that is powered by the same video driver release as the All-In-Wonder HD card.

it does appear that whatever graphics chip is on the all-in-wonder HD uses the same basic driver package as any other current AMD chip so you could get any card HD3000-series and up.

[JP23]

I used to use both an ATI and an Nvidia card in the same PC back when I was using XP. It worked well for me, and it's unfortunate that it's now much harder to do this in Vista/7.

If I recall correctly the trick was to just stick with the driver that windows picks for the second card, rather than installing the full software suite, or anything provided by the manufacturer. Catalyst control center and all the Nvidia software will definitely not coexist peacefully on your machine.

[johnsonx42]

I used to use both an ATI and an Nvidia card in the same PC back when I was using XP. It worked well for me, and it's unfortunate that it's now much harder to do this in Vista/7.

If I recall correctly the trick was to just stick with the driver that windows picks for the second card, rather than installing the full software suite, or anything provided by the manufacturer. Catalyst control center and all the Nvidia software will definitely not coexist peacefully on your machine.

That's worth a try, except I think Windows Update now installs some of the extra stuff too. I'm 99% sure I've seen the full NVidia control panel on machines that never loaded anything except via Windows Update, and I think I've seen the same with CCC too but I'm far less sure on that.
I'm not saying it can't work, I know that it *can* with the right fiddling and voodoo... but if there's any possibility of using two AMD cards instead it will save the OP's sanity.

[RichU]

Thanks, folks! That gives me clues, and certainly helps me "manage my expectations."

Lessons learned....

Rich