Why?
I have enough hardware to make two computers except only one video card.

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I am running Ubuntu 11.10 which is configured to auto log-in and x11vnc which is configured to auto start. My bios is set to not halt on errors.

When I have the video card in, this setup works without any input needed on the Ubuntu machine.

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When I remove the video card the computer gets to the stage where I hear the hard drive doing work and I also get a ping back response from the Ubuntu machine. The numlock on the keyboard is also responsive.

However VNCViewer (win7) returns an error 10061 connection refused and the Default Remote Desktop in linux mint returns 'cannot connect'.

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The fact that the computer responds to the ping request is quite promising.

Pressing ctrl+alt+del and then enter, results in a lot of hard drive activity.

I imagine there might be an error / dialog box appearing.

I am looking for ideas.

Thanks

I would just pick up a cheap video card to be honest. You can get one for a couple bucks, and will save you a major headache down the road if you ever need to log into the machine locally. Plus you won't have to deal with this headache.

Not every motherboard supports going on without video drivers, newer ones should be fine though.

However, http://linux.die.net/man/1/xvfb should work as a tool for a workaround. You should be able to boot it up and do screenshots of errors.