Asus V9180 Problems -- Add RAM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ray
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R

Ray

I bought the Asus P4PE motherboard and added the V9180VS video graphics
card a couple of years ago. My video drivers are current. My system
is now having difficulties that make me think I may have inadequate
video RAM. I've got adequate system RAM -- I have 1 GB and I'm running
a piece of freeware (FreeRAM XP) that typically tells me I have several
hundred MB of RAM available.

The video problems I'm having include these: (1) PDF difficulties.
Sometimes, when I have more than one program (or multiple browser
sessions) showing multiple PDF files, only one will be visible at a
time. I have to finish with that one and kill it before the others are
visible. Sometimes none of them is visible and I basically have to
kill them all, and sometimes even reboot, to get the system back up and
running smoothly. (2) Residue of previously opened programs.
Sometimes, after I kill a program or cease an operation, I'll have a
part of it still visible on the screen. Like, for instance, I might
right-click on an icon in the system tray and get its menu, but then
I'll want to go back to what I was doing onscreen, but that menu will
just persist.

I'd like to verify whether video RAM is the problem and, if so, I'd
like to know whether I can add more RAM and, if I do so, whether that
is apt to solve the problem. I was somewhat knowledgeable about video
cards when I bought the V9180 but, as I say, that was a couple of years
ago. I don't know at this point whether adding more RAM (assuming I
can do that) would be the solution. But I'm certainly interested in
hearing opinions.
 
"Ray" said:
I bought the Asus P4PE motherboard and added the V9180VS video graphics
card a couple of years ago. My video drivers are current. My system
is now having difficulties that make me think I may have inadequate
video RAM. I've got adequate system RAM -- I have 1 GB and I'm running
a piece of freeware (FreeRAM XP) that typically tells me I have several
hundred MB of RAM available.

The video problems I'm having include these: (1) PDF difficulties.
Sometimes, when I have more than one program (or multiple browser
sessions) showing multiple PDF files, only one will be visible at a
time. I have to finish with that one and kill it before the others are
visible. Sometimes none of them is visible and I basically have to
kill them all, and sometimes even reboot, to get the system back up and
running smoothly. (2) Residue of previously opened programs.
Sometimes, after I kill a program or cease an operation, I'll have a
part of it still visible on the screen. Like, for instance, I might
right-click on an icon in the system tray and get its menu, but then
I'll want to go back to what I was doing onscreen, but that menu will
just persist.

I'd like to verify whether video RAM is the problem and, if so, I'd
like to know whether I can add more RAM and, if I do so, whether that
is apt to solve the problem. I was somewhat knowledgeable about video
cards when I bought the V9180 but, as I say, that was a couple of years
ago. I don't know at this point whether adding more RAM (assuming I
can do that) would be the solution. But I'm certainly interested in
hearing opinions.
Click to expand...

It sounds like the things you are talking about, use 2D operations
on the video card. To do 2D, you need frame buffer sized chunks of
memory, and the 64MB on your card should be plenty for that.

What you have, is a failure of sorts, but what an orderly failure.
If you have bad video memory on a card, typically you get colored
blocks or abstract geometric patterns. Many other failure modes
would result in a crash.

Similarly, if your system RAM was bad, you would expect it to manifest
in more ways than that. (Use memtest86+ from memtest.org, if
you are concerned about that.)

I wonder if the video driver itself is corrupted ? Have you updated
the driver recently ? Be aware, that typically, the latest video
driver is not the greatest, as new driver releases are for
optimization of newer video cards, and sometimes these newer drivers
break the older cards (for unexplained reasons).

I would uninstall the video driver, then dig up a driver that
other people are happy with. Try a Google search on mx440 and
"video driver", and see what drivers people have had issues
with. Then, go to Nvidia and download a few and try them out.
You should uninstall the original video driver first.

(Archived files are here)
http://www.nvidia.com/page/search.html?keywords=archive

If you have not been careful to uninstall old video drivers,
before installing new ones, there are tools like "Detonator
Destroyer" and the like, for removing old drivers. I haven't
been keeping up with the capabilities of Detonator Destroyer
(doesn't look like it handles WinXP), but perhaps something
from this page can be used to try to clean up a case of
left-over driver files. (I messed up one OS install by
using at least three different brands of video cards without
attention to the drivers, and even using all driver cleaning
tools, could not get rid of it all. I've learned my lesson,
and "Add/Remove" is the first thing I reach for now.)

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=5

Finally, get a copy of "Everest Home Edition" from lavalys.com
and have a look at the listed hardware capabilities for your
video card. Perhaps the video card is declaring it has a lot
less memory than is physically present ? Powerstrip is another
tool (www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm), that sits on the
task bar, and has a popup menu with "Options" information.

HTH,
Paul
 
Ray said:
I bought the Asus P4PE motherboard and added the V9180VS video graphics
card a couple of years ago. My video drivers are current. My system
is now having difficulties that make me think I may have inadequate
video RAM. I've got adequate system RAM -- I have 1 GB and I'm running
a piece of freeware (FreeRAM XP) that typically tells me I have several
hundred MB of RAM available.

The video problems I'm having include these: (1) PDF difficulties.
Sometimes, when I have more than one program (or multiple browser
sessions) showing multiple PDF files, only one will be visible at a
time. I have to finish with that one and kill it before the others are
visible. Sometimes none of them is visible and I basically have to
kill them all, and sometimes even reboot, to get the system back up and
running smoothly. (2) Residue of previously opened programs.
Sometimes, after I kill a program or cease an operation, I'll have a
part of it still visible on the screen. Like, for instance, I might
right-click on an icon in the system tray and get its menu, but then
I'll want to go back to what I was doing onscreen, but that menu will
just persist.

I'd like to verify whether video RAM is the problem and, if so, I'd
like to know whether I can add more RAM and, if I do so, whether that
is apt to solve the problem. I was somewhat knowledgeable about video
cards when I bought the V9180 but, as I say, that was a couple of years
ago. I don't know at this point whether adding more RAM (assuming I
can do that) would be the solution. But I'm certainly interested in
hearing opinions.
Click to expand...

I doubt very much that lack of video RAM is the problem. This sounds
like a video driver issue to me.

If you're using the drivers from Asus I would try using the drivers from
NVIDIA instead and see if that helps.
 
I hope it is a driver issue. That sounds like an easier solution.

I have done a search in an attempt to figure out what drivers people
recommend. The search is at http://tinyurl.com/bqqat if you're
interested. Nothing is leaping out at me. So I'm wondering why I don't
just use the Device Manager option to Roll Back Driver. What would be
the downside of doing that?

I did a search in the Nvidia website you cited, but that gave me a
three-screen listing of possible drivers, with no clue as to which one
I might want to use. The one I'm using now is dated 4/1/05 (April
Fool's?). Some of the problems I'm having have been going on for some
time, so maybe a previous driver would be the answer.

I have had a problem in which the screen blanks out for an instant. I
thought this was a software problem caused by the upheaval that I
experienced when numerous SBC techs, reading from assorted checklists,
advised me to plug in and unplug, install and uninstall, boot and
reboot in a thousand different ways to make their DSL product work. It
didn't, so I returned it.

But now, since the screen blanking out continues even after
uninstallation of the SBC software, I'm suspecting that the problem
there may be a driver too. I wrote it up in a separate thread, before
I understood that it might be related to this one. See
http://tinyurl.com/ahd4q
 
"Ray" said:
I hope it is a driver issue. That sounds like an easier solution.

I have done a search in an attempt to figure out what drivers people
recommend. The search is at http://tinyurl.com/bqqat if you're
interested. Nothing is leaping out at me. So I'm wondering why I don't
just use the Device Manager option to Roll Back Driver. What would be
the downside of doing that?

I did a search in the Nvidia website you cited, but that gave me a
three-screen listing of possible drivers, with no clue as to which one
I might want to use. The one I'm using now is dated 4/1/05 (April
Fool's?). Some of the problems I'm having have been going on for some
time, so maybe a previous driver would be the answer.

I have had a problem in which the screen blanks out for an instant. I
thought this was a software problem caused by the upheaval that I
experienced when numerous SBC techs, reading from assorted checklists,
advised me to plug in and unplug, install and uninstall, boot and
reboot in a thousand different ways to make their DSL product work. It
didn't, so I returned it.

But now, since the screen blanking out continues even after
uninstallation of the SBC software, I'm suspecting that the problem
there may be a driver too. I wrote it up in a separate thread, before
I understood that it might be related to this one. See
http://tinyurl.com/ahd4q
Click to expand...

I tried searching on "MX440" and "best driver", and one thread
suggested selecting the WHQL driver before 44.03. Apparently,
44.03 had been causing a problem, so in that thread, they tried
40.72 (WHQL). If I then use "40.72" and "nvidia" as search
terms, I get referred to 30.82, which just happens to be another
WHQL certified driver.

This post is interesting, in that the poster experiences variable
amounts of video memory reported for his card.

http://groups.google.ca/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.video/msg/59d839b50dd67a01?dmode=source

(8MB user manual for 40 series drivers)
ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/40.72/nView_20_Users_Guide.pdf

On some of the Nvidia download pages for the drivers, there is
a release notes document, and that will give you some idea
as to which cards received the most attention in the release
(in the "Issues resolved" section).

Paul
 
Paul -- thanks for doing that research. When I go into Device Manager,
I get a report that the Nvidia card is using driver version 7.1.8.9.
Am I looking in the wrong place?

Also, do you think the idea of rolling back to the previous driver
would work?
 
"Ray" said:
Paul -- thanks for doing that research. When I go into Device Manager,
I get a report that the Nvidia card is using driver version 7.1.8.9.
Am I looking in the wrong place?

Also, do you think the idea of rolling back to the previous driver
would work?
Click to expand...

In the archive listing, that looks like:

Windows XP/2000
Version: 71.89
Release Date: April 14, 2005

And, yes, with an older card, rolling back the driver can
fix problems. The driver writers/testers are more concerned
with the current generation of cards, and all manner of problems
can result from grabbing new releases when they come out.

It is even possible they no longer test the driver on the
older cards. If you have ever seen a testing organization,
eventually they run out of room, electrical power, and floor
space, for configuration testing. That is when the old hardware
officially loses support (but the public are not likely to
find out).

Paul
 
What you're saying is new knowledge for me. Now I see on
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_archive.html that 40.72 was
apparently the last one that was WHQL certified, whatever that means.
So I'm going to download that. I'm also downloading the latest one.
I'll try the new one, just on the chance that they have fixed
everything. And if that doesn't work, I'll try the old one, or (if
necessary) an even older one.

Thank you very much for your patience and your initiative in digging
out this information for me. You really didn't have to do that. I am
(as you've probably figured out) just very tapped right now and would
not have been able (or encouraged) to do this digging on my own. Take
care & good luck.
 
I think I have the answer, or at least more of a clue on it. I appear
to have successfully installed the latest WHQL-certified driver.
Apparently it included a version of ASUS Smart Doctor that now seems to
function properly. I say this because Smart Doctor is suddenly popping
up to give me two different error messages that I had not been getting
previously, namely:

VGA chipset fan isn't functioning well
and
VGA chipset isn't supplied with stable voltage.

What's more, those messages (or at least the first one) pop up at the
same time as when the screen blacks out temporarily, as I had
previously been exploring in a separate thread. See
http://tinyurl.com/cp47u. So it seems that the blackouts and the other
problems stem from one or two hardware-related issues.

My question: what, precisely, are my issues at this moment? I
understand the concept of replacing a VGA card's fan, though I've never
done that before. I assume I could find one for sale somewhere. But
is that really the problem, or does fan malfunctioning stem from a
problem with the power supply? I'd rather start by replacing the one
thing most likely to be responsible.

TIA ...
 
Just got a third error message: "VGA voltage is out of safe bound.
Motherboard doesn't supply ..." That's all I got before the message
disappeared. Also, I've noticed, in recent weeks, that CPU temperature
(now 60 degrees C) seems to be quite a bit higher than it used to be.
Are my CPU and video fans failing simultaneously?
 
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