# Saving power ?



## Ofloo (May 16, 2009)

Hi, bought D945GCLF2 but i just need the video card to run at boot time aside from that i don't really need the videocard so I was wondering whether it would be possible to disable the videocard when the system is running, .. 

Regards, ..


----------



## vivek (May 16, 2009)

Noop. It is not possible to disable it. Most server board comes with onboard VGA with 1-4MB RAM / shared ram. If you are going for server level operation you should use one of those board. However, checkout your BIOS. Some BIOS has option to disable onboard stuff and still allows to boot and use the computer. For e.g. USB, keyboard and many other such stuff can be disabled.


----------



## Ofloo (May 17, 2009)

yes but i don't want to disable it completely how am i supposed to do shit on it when something is wrong, .. on bios level, now i want to shut it down after it has booted when there is no screen plugged in, .. If noone has done this before i can't understand why, what is the point of having hardware run that you're not going to use ?


----------



## Ofloo (May 17, 2009)

And there is option to shut it down .. all on board vga do, .. incase you want use your own card.


----------



## trev (May 18, 2009)

Ofloo said:
			
		

> yes but i don't want to disable it completely how am i supposed to do stuff on it when something is wrong



You use ssh like the rest of us.


----------



## Ofloo (May 19, 2009)

I meanth when something happens in on bios level, ofcourse i use ssh now, .. i hardly ever user anything else.


----------



## Ofloo (May 19, 2009)

That is why i don't understand that there isn't an option to disable it once booted !? I mean one must be able to do this on kernel level, .. no?


----------



## trev (May 20, 2009)

One answer is to use a serial console and remove/disable the video card/chipset completely. You then have access to the BIOS as well.


----------



## Ofloo (May 20, 2009)

hmm, i suppose the mainboard has to support that right not all do support that feature or do they?

I've always wanted to do that but i have no clue how to do so?


----------



## trev (May 20, 2009)

Ofloo said:
			
		

> hmm, i suppose the mainboard has to support that right not all do support that feature or do they?



I've only ever owned one which provided serial access to the BIOS - it was a Tyan Tiger dual Athlon XP board.



> I've always wanted to do that but i have no clue how to do so?




http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html#SERIALCONSOLE-SETUP


----------



## Ofloo (May 20, 2009)

hmm, it appears i can't turn of the videocard, .. however i can use an external one whatever that means would that mean if i set ext and there is none that it is turned off?


----------



## Ofloo (May 20, 2009)

trev said:
			
		

> I've only ever owned one which provided serial access to the BIOS - it was a Tyan Tiger dual Athlon XP board.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm sorry this has nothing to do with BIOS, BIOS loads before FreeBSD, .. so it's obvious that none of these settings will ever matter, .. ok you get the boot menu and stuff i knew that for a long time however this has nothing to do with bios !


----------



## trev (May 21, 2009)

Ofloo said:
			
		

> I'm sorry this has nothing to do with BIOS, BIOS loads before FreeBSD, .. so it's obvious that none of these settings will ever matter, .. ok you get the boot menu and stuff i knew that for a long time however this has nothing to do with bios !



If the BIOS supports output to a serial port AND you setup the remote console, then it has everything to do with it because the BIOS is then accessible remotely, along with the FreeBSD boot process and console. Not sure how much clearer I could be.


----------

