Identifying Video Cards Remotely?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Drove up to a client site today and popped a video card into my
PC there - with the intent of having both the onboard video and
the new card available.

Foolishly, I forgot to write down the make/model of the card I
added.

Not only that, but adding it hosed the drivers for the onboard
card.

The Question:

Once I am connected to that PC from here, is there any way to
determine exactly what card I put in there?

I'm pretty sure I have the integrated mobo video nailed bc I went
to the maker's web site and looked it up.

But the card I added?

Tried SystemInfo and MyComputer | Manage | Device Manager, but
they seem tb looking at drivers instead of the metal.

 

[Paul]

Drove up to a client site today and popped a video card into my
PC there - with the intent of having both the onboard video and
the new card available.

Foolishly, I forgot to write down the make/model of the card I
added.

Not only that, but adding it hosed the drivers for the onboard
card.

The Question:

Once I am connected to that PC from here, is there any way to
determine exactly what card I put in there?

I'm pretty sure I have the integrated mobo video nailed bc I went
to the maker's web site and looked it up.

But the card I added?

Tried SystemInfo and MyComputer | Manage | Device Manager, but
they seem tb looking at drivers instead of the metal.

You can try various utilities to dump the info. For example,
if your got the commercial version of Lavalys Everest, it
would undoubtedly give an English title, at a price.

http://www.lavalys.com/

For cheapskates like me, there are other options.

Go to Device Manager, and find the video card entry.
Look under "Properties" of the Device, then "Details".
You might see an entry like "Device Instance Id"

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0291&SUBSYS_21DB19F1&REV_A1\4&78EEA88&0&0030

Now, if for some reason, you couldn't find an entry like that,
or the entry didn't have a "Details" tab, you can use an older
version of Everest (2.20 free).

http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Install that, run it, then navigate to Devices : PCI Devices.

If there is a video entry there, with "NoDB" next to it, that
means Everest lacks a table entry for it. No matter - look for
Device ID. Mine says

Device ID 10DE-0291
Subsystem ID 19F1-21DB <--- Notice the inversion, compared to above

Then, look for an Internet listing of pci.ids .

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

10de nVidia Corporation
0291 G71 [GeForce 7900 GT/GTO]
10de 042b NX7900GTO-T2D512E [7900 GTO]

The Subsystem ID indents to the third level. Not every card
ever made, has its own Subsystem ID. You're lucky if there
is one representative one. Of the two clusters of digits
in the Subsystem ID, one group is the "Vendor", such as
Pny, GeCube, Asus, or the like.

In any case, now I know I need a driver for a 7900 GT ot GTO,
which may be using the same GPU chip, and are just clocked to
different clock speeds.

The NVidia or ATI sites have driver tabs on the main page
(support or whatever). The NVidia one can be tricky to navigate,
while the ATI one tells outright lies So in some regards,
they're equally treacherous.

Now, maybe Belarc Advisor can do the identifying for you, but
I don't use that a whole lot.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Patok]

Drove up to a client site today and popped a video card into my
PC there - with the intent of having both the onboard video and
the new card available.

Foolishly, I forgot to write down the make/model of the card I
added.

Not only that, but adding it hosed the drivers for the onboard
card.

The Question:

Once I am connected to that PC from here, is there any way to
determine exactly what card I put in there?

I'm pretty sure I have the integrated mobo video nailed bc I went
to the maker's web site and looked it up.

But the card I added?

Tried SystemInfo and MyComputer | Manage | Device Manager, but
they seem tb looking at drivers instead of the metal.

You can try various utilities to dump the info. For example,
if your got the commercial version of Lavalys Everest, it
would undoubtedly give an English title, at a price.

http://www.lavalys.com/

For cheapskates like me, there are other options.

Go to Device Manager, and find the video card entry.
Look under "Properties" of the Device, then "Details".
You might see an entry like "Device Instance Id"

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0291&SUBSYS_21DB19F1&REV_A1\4&78EEA88&0&0030

Now, if for some reason, you couldn't find an entry like that,
or the entry didn't have a "Details" tab, you can use an older
version of Everest (2.20 free).

http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Install that, run it, then navigate to Devices : PCI Devices.

If there is a video entry there, with "NoDB" next to it, that
means Everest lacks a table entry for it. No matter - look for
Device ID. Mine says

Device ID 10DE-0291
Subsystem ID 19F1-21DB <--- Notice the inversion, compared to above

Then, look for an Internet listing of pci.ids .

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

10de nVidia Corporation
0291 G71 [GeForce 7900 GT/GTO]
10de 042b NX7900GTO-T2D512E [7900 GTO]

The Subsystem ID indents to the third level. Not every card
ever made, has its own Subsystem ID. You're lucky if there
is one representative one. Of the two clusters of digits
in the Subsystem ID, one group is the "Vendor", such as
Pny, GeCube, Asus, or the like.

In any case, now I know I need a driver for a 7900 GT ot GTO,
which may be using the same GPU chip, and are just clocked to
different clock speeds.

The NVidia or ATI sites have driver tabs on the main page
(support or whatever). The NVidia one can be tricky to navigate,
while the ATI one tells outright lies So in some regards,
they're equally treacherous.

Now, maybe Belarc Advisor can do the identifying for you, but
I don't use that a whole lot.

GPU-Z gives that information, looking straight at the metal, it
seems. Piriform Speccy gives it too, but I think it uses the drivers,
and might not work if they are missing.

 

[Paul]

GPU-Z gives that information, looking straight at the metal, it seems.
Piriform Speccy gives it too, but I think it uses the drivers, and might
not work if they are missing.

Good point.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/

Paul

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

other options.

I wound up driving back to the site.

I've got full rez now, but only one monitor available - even
though there is an Intel graphics adapter hardwired into the mobo
plus the Radeon card I just installed.

Seems like, with the Radeon card installed, Windows is only
seeing that one card and not the mobo-resident one too.

Does anything about this jump out at anybody?

 

[Paul]

Per Paul:

I wound up driving back to the site.

I've got full rez now, but only one monitor available - even
though there is an Intel graphics adapter hardwired into the mobo
plus the Radeon card I just installed.

Seems like, with the Radeon card installed, Windows is only
seeing that one card and not the mobo-resident one too.

Does anything about this jump out at anybody?

Some AGP systems do that, the "either/or" thing.
So what you're seeing is "normal".

A more modern PCI Express system, may allow both to
be enabled (onboard and add-in cards), and the onboard
itself can support two monitors on its own. So there
is a whole spectrum of possibilities.

It's the kind of thing you should test before leaving
the site

Paul

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

Some AGP systems do that, the "either/or" thing.
So what you're seeing is "normal".

Funny thing is that when I was working on-site, I had two (and,
IRRC) three monitors hooked up that box.

Problem is that I cannot recall which graphics card I was using.