A31p, FireGL 7800 Memory Reported = 32mb

[deSitter]

Hi all,

I have a 2653 RGU with a 1600x1200 display and the Mobility Radeon 7800 graphics - supposed to have 64mb of video RAM and I know it does - but the newest installed driver from Lenovo reports only 32mb of RAM - I have 2GB of system memory and I'm wondering if this is the issue (stepping on AGP mapping?)

Is there a better driver? Could half my video RAM be dead?

thanks in advance

[ajkula66]

Your VRAM could be failing, but let's try a couple of different things here...

Test this driver:

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/ATIPOWPL.zip

Also, download a copy of PC-Doctor for DOS, burn the disk and boot from it, then run all the tests regarding GPU, VRAM and system board.

Good luck.

[deSitter]

Curious - the driver identifies the graphics as a 7800 but PCDR says it's a 7500, which does in fact have 32mb in these A3x-series machines. I removed one SIMM to get down to the rated maximum of 1GB and no change. The existing driver works fine. There are no problems other than being cheated out of half my VRAM

I replaced the planar some time ago because the video on the old one died - this is definitely a 31p because it has the PHILDECN S-video in connector. So what's going on? Is the VRAM replaceable?

Thanks for your help.

-drl

Your VRAM could be failing, but let's try a couple of different things here...

Test this driver:

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/ATIPOWPL.zip

Also, download a copy of PC-Doctor for DOS, burn the disk and boot from it, then run all the tests regarding GPU, VRAM and system board.

Good luck.

[RealBlackStuff]

What is the P/N or FRU of your motherboard?
You may NOT have an A31p mobo, but an ordinary A31 board!
If A31p, it should have one of these numbers: 26P8232, 26P8399 (both w/o security chip) or 26P8430 (with sec chip).

[deSitter]

What is the P/N or FRU of your motherboard?
You may NOT have an A31p mobo, but an ordinary A31 board!
If A31p, it should have one of these numbers: 26P8232, 26P8399 (both w/o security chip) or 26P8430 (with sec chip).

All the tools (System Information, Lenovo website, etc) identify this system as 2653RGU A31p - now oddly this FRU number is not listed in the hardware maintenance manual model matrix at all! However here is an example I found online:

http://computer.tenet.com/Systems/Porta ... 53RGU.html

so I'm not imagining it! It's definitely a 31p - I did a pretty close comparison to my old planar when I replaced it. Now my old one was a 2653R5U, which has the identical hardware and software lineup as this RGU, and all its old components were transferred to the new planar, so needless to say I am confused. I don't think half the video memory can just fail. Maybe I have a rare prototype or something! I put in the Catalyst driver and that too says I have 32Mb. The good thing is, 32Mb is plenty for this machine - the only OpenGL I do on it is Starry Night and the only DirectX is Google Earth, and it runs those fine at 1600x1200. But I would really like to understand what is going on here! I would also like to know if it is possible to replace the video RAM on the system board. Thanks for your help.

-drl

[deSitter]

What is the P/N or FRU of your motherboard?
You may NOT have an A31p mobo, but an ordinary A31 board!
If A31p, it should have one of these numbers: 26P8232, 26P8399 (both w/o security chip) or 26P8430 (with sec chip).

BTW the FRU is 8430. I remember that from when I ordered it. I do remember verifying that.

-drl

[RealBlackStuff]

In that case I'm with George, failing VRAM.

[deSitter]

What is the P/N or FRU of your motherboard?
You may NOT have an A31p mobo, but an ordinary A31 board!
If A31p, it should have one of these numbers: 26P8232, 26P8399 (both w/o security chip) or 26P8430 (with sec chip).

The other point is - perhaps the driver is incorrectly reporting the amount of video RAM, or perhaps the (sort of) recently applied SP3 has munged something and it really does have 64Mb that it's not using. There is absolutely no evidence of video problems other than this RAM figure.

-drl

[RealBlackStuff]

Product: ThinkPad A31p 2653-RGU [change]
Operating system: All [change]

Original description: P4-M 2.0GHz (512KB), 256MB RAM, 80.0GB HDD, 15.0 UXGA(1600x1200) TFT LCD, 24x10x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, 802.11b wireless (MPCI), Modem(CDC), Ethernet(CDC), Bluetooth (CDC), IEEE 1394, TV out, Secure chip, Li-Ion battery, WinXP PRO

What do the Display Properties say?

[deSitter]

Product: ThinkPad A31p 2653-RGU [change]
Operating system: All [change]

Original description: P4-M 2.0GHz (512KB), 256MB RAM, 80.0GB HDD, 15.0 UXGA(1600x1200) TFT LCD, 24x10x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, 802.11b wireless (MPCI), Modem(CDC), Ethernet(CDC), Bluetooth (CDC), IEEE 1394, TV out, Secure chip, Li-Ion battery, WinXP PRO

What do the Display Properties say?

Adapter Type is listed as ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7800 GL

Chip type is ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL 7800 AGP (0x4C58) (that must be the vendor PCI ID) - here's the Hardware ID string from Device Manager

PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C58&SUBSYS_05181014&REV_00

-drl

[Harryc]

Run dxdiag and post the results here.

[deSitter]

Run dxdiag and post the results here.

OK here's the display info (all tests were fine)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7800 GL
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI MOBILITY FIRE GL 7800 AGP (0x4C58)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C58&SUBSYS_05181014&REV_00
Display Memory: 32.0 MB
Current Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Digital Flat Panel (1600x1200)
Monitor Max Res:
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6575 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 9/15/2005 04:58:00, 241664 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: No
WHQL Date Stamp: None
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
Mini VDD Date: 9/15/2005 04:58:00, 1339392 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0F18-11CF-0B6A-1225A1C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x4C58
SubSys ID: 0x05181014
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
Deinterlace Caps: {335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=DeinterlaceTech_BOBLineReplicate
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(UYVY,UYVY) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YV12,0x32315659) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D7 Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D8 Test Result: All tests were successful.
D3D9 Test Result: All tests were successful.

-drl

[ajkula66]

Fire GL7800 is based on Radeon 7500, but I doubt that the driver would be "confused" to the point of reporting only half of VRAM.

I'm still suspecting a failure here.

Good luck.

[Harryc]

Just to eliminate the driver, what I would do is to boot up a Live Linux CD and run lspci per the linked instructions.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-find ... -card-ram/

[SMA]

On a 26P8430 board, the VRAM is 4 chips soldered to the board.
2 chips on the top side of the board and 2 more on the bottom side.

[deSitter]

On a 26P8430 board, the VRAM is 4 chips soldered to the board.
2 chips on the top side of the board and 2 more on the bottom side.

OK I've followed everyone's advice but still reporting only 32Mb. Definitely identical planar to my original - same FRU etc.

I'm CERTAIN this isn't VRAM - but here's more info. I swapped out the 2.0 P4M for a 2.2 that came from a dead Satellite 5205 - that machine had an NVIDIA graphics chip. Now, looking through the Knoppix boot logs and Xorg logs, I see that memory at e0000000-e7ffffff is overlapping and being remapped - I'm not sure what all that means but I have the suspicion that something is getting horked in the processor-to-AGP configuration. My real A31 does not report the same memory allocation with the Intel 84xxx Processor to AGP device in my A31p vs my straight A31. So I think this is the problem - do we have any gurus here who understand AGP above my primitive level?

I'm going to switch back to the 2.0 P4M later today and see if that changes anything. My A31 will get the 2.2 in that case.

Thanks for helping, this place is great.

-ross

[ajkula66]

Your CPU has nothing to do with the amount of VRAM reported.

I've ran every imaginable P4M processor in the A31p units over the years and it had no bearing on VRAM whatsoever.