I know what you said, but the fact it is posting on your MOBO output, and also not running F1 unless you reboot with the MOBO output disconnected tells me its not treating your PCI-e as primary.
It depends on what 'primary monitor' means. In control panel I can choose either as my 'main monitor' and I chose the graphics card one and that is where my icons show up and where programs start. I also know that if I write computer code to place a window on my desktop any Window.Left pixel value up to 1920 shows on the graphics card monitor and any value above 1920 shows on the MOBO monitor so Windows has them correctly placed. However if I use the 'identify monitor' button windows says the graphics monitor is monitor 2 and I do not know if it is possible to change that. I think it is fixed during boot and can't be edited.
[quote="Cant say I have heard of people running mobo and PCI-e graphics in tandem, I was of the understanding that once a card is plugged into PCI-e, it disables the MOBO output - but what you describe seems to contradict this.
There is a lot of missing info, ie, your O/S, your mobo, your graphics card type.
Even what connections you are using from which output eg vga/dvi/hdmi/display port can make a big difference.
Does your graphics card not support 2 monitors? Even my ageing 4870s can each support 2 monitors via VGA or DVI - problem solved if you simply want 2 independent monitors for simultaneous gaming and desktop use. I expect that nvidia flavour cards can do the same.[/quote]
I can put both monitors on the graphics card and it works but then I can't use the ASUS Express Gate feature that has a 5 second window to be started BEFORE windows starts loading. Any monitor on the graphics card does not display at this point hence I have one monitor on the MOBO. Express Gate lets me boot a cut down OS to browse the internet, check emails, etc in less than 10 seconds so it can be useful.
I do not think this is an issue of my system, it is a case of how to get F1 2010 to ignore the monitor on the MOBO if that is possible, or maybe how to hack Windows so it says the graphics card monitor is monitor 1, or get F1 2010 to use the 'main monitor' as defined by Windows rather than what Windows says is monitor 1.
Window 7 x64, ASUS M4A78LT-M, NVidia GeForce GT240, DVI to the graphics card and VGA to the MOBO.