Video memory?

[VectraMan]

I had a look at the BIOS in my Dell Latitude laptop earlier, and sure enough you can change the amount of reserved video ram. So following my own advice I've changed it from "auto" (which says 128MB if you have >768MB) to the minimum 32MB. So now task manager says I have 2013MB total compared to 1900-ish before.

I also found a setting that puts the hard disk into performance - but noisier mode.

Maybe it's all coincidence, but I've been using it (with VS2005 no less) for the last hour or so and it seems to be running a lot faster than it was before. Hmmm.

[Mustang]

Spend £399 (inc VAT) on a new laptop like this with 3GB of RAM and a dual core Intel processor.

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/pro...ps-_-position1

Give the old one to charity.

Once I am off the bench that is exactly what I intend to do!!

[pmeswani]

Give the old one to charity.

Or convert it into a Linux server of some sort?

[DimPrawn]

Spend £399 (inc VAT) on a new laptop like this with 3GB of RAM and a dual core Intel processor.

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/pro...ps-_-position1

Give the old one to charity.

[Mustang]

Is it thrashing the disk?

When this sort of thing happens it generally means the application behind has been mostly swapped out, so before it can draw its window the OS has to reload the application's painting code from the hard disk.

It doesnt seem to overly thrash the disk.

Any suggestions for what to check and/or do in this situation?

[Mustang]

Is it possible your laptop is struggling with the amount RAM in general?

By this do you mean that there is not enough RAM?

[pmeswani]

I use another site but basically adopting your advice to update the drivers. Most were OK but a few were outdated. I used device manager to check things and there is an error on the SMBus driver. Not sure what that is but I will fix it in the morning.

I have 1GB of RAM.

How do I change the video memory in BIOS?

Unfortunately, this option is system dependent. You will need to check your system documentation to find out if this is possible. As you are running 1GB of memory, you may as well look at increasing this. Some systems automatically assign a small portion from ram as Video Ram. Can't be of more help, unfortunately.

[Churchill]

Is it thrashing the disk?

When this sort of thing happens it generally means the application behind has been mostly swapped out, so before it can draw its window the OS has to reload the application's painting code from the hard disk.

If you can change the amount of RAM being used for video, if anything you want to reduce it to give more to the applications. There's no benefit to lots of video RAM outside of games.

Not entirely true.
(CUDA <---- Google)

[VectraMan]

Is it thrashing the disk?

When this sort of thing happens it generally means the application behind has been mostly swapped out, so before it can draw its window the OS has to reload the application's painting code from the hard disk.

If you can change the amount of RAM being used for video, if anything you want to reduce it to give more to the applications. There's no benefit to lots of video RAM outside of games.

[Jaws]

Thats part of the problem - hence my comments about it being slow. However if I have 2 windows overlapping and I close one of them, you can still see where its been for a long while before the screen refreshes and re-draws the window that was underneath.

Is it possible your laptop is struggling with the amount RAM in general? I notice this behaviour sometimes when a background application is being paged back in from disk - or just when it is real busy in general.

Perhaps it would help you to reduce the amount of RAM used by the video card in your BIOS (check the laptop manual for this if you can't find the setting yourself).

Maybe you have a lot of background tasks running. You should be able to get an idea of the amount of memory available and used in task manager.

[Mustang]

If you're saying when you open a new app it takes a while before it appears, then that's the computer just being generally slow, and the app taking a long time before it "paints".

Thats part of the problem - hence my comments about it being slow. However if I have 2 windows overlapping and I close one of them, you can still see where its been for a long while before the screen refreshes and re-draws the window that was underneath.

[Mustang]

Download and install Driver Detective from http://www.drivershq.com/ and update all the new drivers on your system. If it doesn't fix the problem, have a look at the bios to see if you can increase the video memory. How much system memory (total) does your laptop have?

I use another site but basically adopting your advice to update the drivers. Most were OK but a few were outdated. I used device manager to check things and there is an error on the SMBus driver. Not sure what that is but I will fix it in the morning.

I have 1GB of RAM.

How do I change the video memory in BIOS?

[VectraMan]

It won't be the amount of video memory. If you're saying when you open a new app it takes a while before it appears, then that's the computer just being generally slow, and the app taking a long time before it "paints".

Updating the driver won't hurt. It's possible it's not using all the hardware acceleration it could be.

[pmeswani]

I have posted before about my laptop being a little slow. Once area that it appears to most noticeable is the video refresh. It takes a long time to over-write the graphics when you open new windows.

Am I right in thinking that this problem could be related to the amount of memory available to the video controller? If not, is a problem with the video card in some way? Either way, does anyone know how I can check this and correct it?

TIA.

Download and install Driver Detective from http://www.drivershq.com/ and update all the new drivers on your system. If it doesn't fix the problem, have a look at the bios to see if you can increase the video memory. How much system memory (total) does your laptop have?

[Mustang]

I have posted before about my laptop being a little slow. Once area that it appears to most noticeable is the video refresh. It takes a long time to over-write the graphics when you open new windows.

Am I right in thinking that this problem could be related to the amount of memory available to the video controller? If not, is a problem with the video card in some way? Either way, does anyone know how I can check this and correct it?

TIA.