How to switch off Graphics card?? Need help.

Hey, wondering if you guys could help me with this. I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB card , an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro mobo, Corsair AX 850 V2 psu. I have Win XP SP3 and Win 7 SP1 Ultimate x64 installed in two separate hard drives. I basically use Win 7 for gaming and Win XP for browsing the net and downloading. My question is whether I can turn off the graphics card when i'm using Win XP while downloading over night by connecting the HDMI cable to the motherboard while removing the power cable to the graphics card. What is your opinion to this? Will this work?

First of all removing the power connection from the Graphics card won't stop it, it will still fetch 75W power available from the PCI E X16 slot, Now since it is insufficient for the high end GPU, might lead to some problems because of low power issues. You have to physically remove the card from the slot.

Intel Z68 motherboard does support switchable Graphics option through Lucid Logic Virtue sofware, But I don't think plugging the Monitor to the motherboard output HDMI will solve your requirement because each time you need to install/Uninstall the Intel IGP driver.

There is no need to do such things, the idle power consumotion of HD 6950 is very less, just around 20W.

@op,
don't do such things like unplugging the power cable and all.at idle the computer will consume very less power so you don't need to worry about it.

if you unplug the power from the GFX card , then the system will not boot up.

the Radeon HD 6950, the traditional lower power card using a slightly cut-down GPU. The 6950 has 1408 stream processors, 88 texture units, and still all 32 ROPs attached to the same 2GB of GDDR5. The core clock is similarly reduced to 800MHz, while the memory clock is 1250MHz (5GHz data rate). TDP is 200W, while idle power is the same as with the 6970 at 20W.

you care for 20W? turn off the light & fan when unused. this will save more energy.

if you care for noise, at idle the fan should slow down enough to make it completely inaudible.

A

Charan said:
if you unplug the power from the GFX card , then the system will not boot up.

Hello bro.
Just seen ur siggy. Am also wana build same rig i.e i5 2400 + intel h67bl + msi 6850 CE.
Would u plz answer :
1. Is that mobo is good.
2. As It dont have solid caps , any heat issues !? Hows intel BL's PCB?
3. How this GPU perorms @ HD.
4. what games u played/playing @hd.
5. Any suggestion for me regarding rig my budget is @40k.
Plz answer & u can PM or just reply here.

^^ LOL, you can either send a PM to him or create a new thread, as there is very little chance to get reply from him about your questions, specially here because your questions are totally out of the context of this thread.