As I can remember, on old systems (Pentium II or III) it was not possible to boot and run the PC if the graphics card was missing (AGP cards were used in those days).
Many years from then, I'm using motherboards with integrated graphics and I have no experience related to this subject, the "graphics card" always was present.
Currently I intend to build a home/private "server" for my purposes and most of the motherboards I want to buy have no integrated graphics (AMD 870 or 970). I can take a normal graphics card from my friends for a few hours/days and use it when installing the necessary software.
Can I boot and run the PC without problems after I install everything I need and the graphics card is removed? If a general answer cannot be given, at least some examples of manufacturers/MB series/MB models will be helpful.
I think it's obvious, but for completeness, I mean cheap desktop components and not real servers.
Answer
Does a modern PC require a graphics card to run?
I believe that many motherboards can boot without a video system. (but I have no actual experience of this)
Wikipedia says
During bootup, some (especially older) PC BIOS versions will wait indefinitely for a user to press a key before proceeding if some basic devices are not installed or connected, effectively halting an unattended system. These can include:
- a video card;
- a keyboard.
On more modern systems, the BIOS factory setting will typically be configured to behave this way as well, but this setting can be changed via a BIOS setup facility to proceed without user intervention. Even in cases where a system has been set up to be managed remotely, a local keyboard and video card may still be needed from time to time, for example to diagnose boot problems that occur before a remote access application is initialized.
Certainly many server-grade motherboards are designed explicitly for this - the Wikipedia article mentions this, I have HP and IBM servers that include some sort of Ethernet based "console" support for boot messages etc.
In general I'd download and read the motherboard manual and check that there is an option that allows booting to continue without pressing a key after an erro
e.g. on ASUS UEFI BIOS
Wait for ‘F1’ If Error [Enabled]
When set to [Enabled], the system waits for the key to be pressed when error occurs.
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