Should my motherboard HDMI output ports work?

[Gymnophoria]

I have an HP Pavilion 550-154na desktop connected to my Dell monitor by HDMI cable from the graphics card, it works fine. But I'd like to connect a second monitor (or projector). The graphics card only has one HDMI port, but the back of the machine has two HDMI ports (covered with black caps), which presumably come off the motherboard. I tried plugging my monitor into one of these ports but the screen stayed blank.

What are my options? Is it possible to get output from these ports or do I need to use a splitter or something?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

When your model has a discrete (add-on) video card, the onboard graphics is automatically disabled.

Look under the Integrated Graphics specs.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-Pavilion-550-100-Desktop-PC-series/8499648/model/9242957/docu...

You can get output from those ports if you remove the graphics card.

If you leave the graphics card in, you can either hook up a DVI cable from the DVI out port on the graphics card to the DVI input of your monitor.  I would think most monitors have multiple inputs.

If your other monitor only has a HDMI input, get a DVI to HDMI cable.

You will not get audio from a DVI port.