Changing Video Cards

[Panama Red]

Forum members have frequently asked if it is necessary to delete the drivers and reinstall when upgrading or changing video cards. I had the opportunity today to answer that question when changing out ATI cards. The system in my sig is the one I used. I had a Sapphire Radeon 9600XT in it and wanted to use that card in my AMD oc machine. I had been running a plain 9600 in the AMD.

I shut down the system, turned off the power supply and waited for the mobo lite to go off. The I removed the monitor cable and swapped cards. Reconnected, power turned on and power up. The graphics had defaulted to the VGA instlallation default settings. XP immediately saw the new hardware and the wizard popped up. It found the Omega driver, notified me it was not signed and I said install anyway. Next the new hardware wizard found the "new" monitor. Just installed the normal plug and play default settings. Next, the second (virtual) card was found and the Omega drivers were automatically installed. I was notified to reboot to accept the settings. Did that and everything came up perfect. Monitor resolution was set higher than I normally use, but that's easily adjustable.

So, if you're planning to change video cards within the Radeon series and you are using Windows XP, I'd venture to say driver removal is NOT necessary. However, since we all know no two computers are exactly the same, your results may vary.

[builderboy]

panama, what do you think about the lite-on drives, im getting them tomorrow

[glc]

A little off topic, don't you think?

[dtharp12]

Anyone done a card swap with Nvidia cards and opmega drivers? I've got a 6800gt on the way to replace my 5750, I was wondering if I needed to delete my omega drivers, or just switch the cards out.

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by builderboy panama, what do you think about the lite-on drives, im getting them tomorrow

I have one and I think it's great, except for the noise. It sounds like a small lawn mower when it starts spinning.