Is it possible to reduce/disable a specific amount of memory on a video card?

[Slugbait]

I know, weird request. But here's the issue: I've got an MSI K8NGM2 mobo for the living room HTPC. I have 3 gigs of RAM (2x1G and 2x512). When using a 6200/128 or an 8600GTS/256, Win7 has no problem recognizing the video cards.

Introducing the GeForce 210/512: now Win7 can't see the video card at all. Device Mangler shows a resource conflict in the pci-to-pci bridge.

Solution: pop one of the 512 sticks.

New problem: highly noticeable perf hit in Windows, especially the MCE shell.

I actually found this solution from one of the final posts in the official mobo thread. Seems that this board has some sort of a memory limit, and the extra 256 megs the GF210 has over the 8600 takes me over that limit.

Theory: disabling 256 megs on the card will enable me to add the fourth stick of RAM back to the board and get my desktop perf back again.

Ideas on how to do this?

Additional notes:
- The onboard 6150 wasn't sufficient for OTA HD in Win7 (neither was the 6200/128)
- Yes, the onboard VGA is disabled in the BIOS
- Proc is an X2 4200+, not oc'd
- Have tried both 32-bit and 64-bit Win7

 

[ViRGE]

This isn't possible without reprogramming the BIOS. I don't think it's an easy edit either, but you can always give it a shot with NiBiTor.

 

[Slugbait]

Well, THAT ain't gonna happen. The wife and kid want a currently-working HTPC in the living room, not another offline experiment by me. I was one of those who unlocked a vanilla 6800 AGP back in the day, and I know how to limit addressable RAM, was just wondering if there was something similar and easy for video memory.

Ah, well. I have another option...thanks ViRGE

 

[VirtualLarry]

What about Win7 64-bit?

 

[Slugbait]

What about Win7 64-bit?

Que?

 

[Seero]

Simple answer, you cannot change the size of memory on the video card. These conflict was old news and disappeared for a long time until win7. For some odd reason it comes back. There can be many cause but it sounds like a bad bios from manufacturer. Check and see if there exist a bios update.

Cut the crap, if it there are no updates on BIOS, then you are next to screwed. The video card is reserving an address that is already used by the mobo. This should not have happened, here is what you can do to fix it. Disable reservations made by mobo on things you don't have in bios. I.e. Floppy disk, printer port, serial port, etc. You can do this via bios or device manager. Disable things in bios first. Disable things that you can't in BIOS in device manager. (This is reversible, but you will need to read down what you changed for reference so that reversing is possible without breaking other setups accidentally.)

If OS doesn't automatically fixes the conflict, then you will need to fix it manually. (I don't know if you need to do this in safe mode or not) Go into the device manager, go to the resource tab of the problematic device, uncheck automatic settings and check on the conflicting address range and a scroll menu should pop up, find a range that isn't used. (You only need to fix one of the 2 conflicting device, not both.) Reboot. (This is reversible, but you will need to read down what you changed for reference so that reversing is possible without breaking other setups accidentally.)

Again, I can't see your PC so I can't say things for sure, but note that both PCI_to_PCI bridge and video card requires a large continuous address range and things may be a bit more convoluted, you may need to manually assign addresses on devices that doesn't have conflict just to create a continuous address range for those problematic devices, and some assignment can't be changed. Remember to write down changes you made so manual rollback is possible as there are no automatic rollback on changes like these.

Here is a read before you start messing with those.
http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/Understanding-the-Computer-System-Resources/

Dump question from me, did you install drivers for your mobo? If not, install it.

 

[RavenSEAL]

...a GT210 is a horrible card for anything...including watching videos.

No better than an on-board.

Go drop $50 on a decent GT240 or 4670.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

...a GT210 is a horrible card for anything...including watching videos.

No better than an on-board.

Go drop $50 on a decent GT240 or 4670.

Or just use one of the cards he already has. Unless he needs specific HTPC features of a newer card.

 

[Slugbait]

No better than an on-board.

Actually, the 6200/128 was just a little better than the onboard 6150 for OTA HD, but also could not remotely do the job. And the GT210 turned out to be vastly superior to the 6200 for OTA HD playback. Yeah, been working on this box for weeks...even tried Rivatuner on the 6200 to unlock the other four pipes, but lost video on reboot and immediately gave up and tried 64-bit Win7 instead (hey, it's the living room box, and the 4-year-old needs Cars, so can't have it offline for long).

Seero, thank you for the detailed response. The mobo is past EOL, and already has the L&G BIOS. First thing I always do after OS install is chipset drivers. In the BIOS I had already disabled legacy devices and SATA (both drives are IDE) and anything else I thought I wouldn't need. After reading your post I went back in to the BIOS and then tried disabling LAN (box is only on wireless) and FireWire (don't need it THAT much), and then went into Device Mangler and disable all four of the HD audio devices for the video card (wondered why they were there anyway after unchecking audio during driver install). Unfortunately, it didn't make a bit of difference. But I'm not going to futz with it further from this point...I will survive with 2.5 gigs for now because...

Optional plan: wait a couple of weeks for new releases to hopefully drive down prices on the GTX460. Put one of those in the primary HTPC, and then take the 8600GTS from that box and drop that into the "problem" box. Then dump the GT210.

Thanks all for your help. It's why I hang here...

 

[Seero]

... But I'm not going to futz with it further from this point...I will survive with 2.5 gigs for now because...

Optional plan: wait a couple of weeks for new releases to hopefully drive down prices on the GTX460. Put one of those in the primary HTPC, and then take the 8600GTS from that box and drop that into the "problem" box. Then dump the GT210.

Thanks all for your help. It's why I hang here...

IMO you are steps away from fixing this. I'm too not exactly sure, but after manually de-fragmented the address range, you may need to reinstall the video driver so it reassigns from the open address range.

Of course, the downside of manual adjustment is a) dangerous, and b) needs to manually fix address range problem when changing hardwares.