Hi all,
I have a new Dell Dimension 4100 with a 32M DDR Radeon video card. Other
pertinent details: P3- 866, 128M RAM, 40G HD, 12x DVD, CDRW.
This machine is quite fast and overall I am very pleased with it. However, I
am suffering from incessant lockups and freeze outs, more so that I have
ever seen in my life. I have run more programs on lesser configured machines
(Dell and otherwise) with not nearly so many lockups.
Since my naïve sense tells me that these are software related rather than
hardware per se, and that the "conflicts" if that is what is happening are
more likely to be memory location related than any other factor, it got me
wondering if my AGP aperture set for the Radeon card may be the culprit.
I don't know much about AGP aperture, so these may be stupid questions, but
here goes:
I have 128 M RAM. The default AGP aperture is set for 64M. If I look at a
memory map, there sure seems to be a lot assigned to the Radeon. I assume
64M? Is that what that Aperture is? What exactly does it do for me? I assume
it is mapping out 64M of my system's RAM for use by the video card? Or does
this mean something else? It seems pointless to me to "allot" 64M of system
RAM when the damn card already has 32M of very fast DDR RAM all to itself.
Or do I have the concept all wrong?
If this RAM is "allocated" to the Radeon, is it permanently allocated? Or
does the system reclaim all or part of it back when it is needed for other
stuff?
If it is claimed back, could my "lockups" be due the fact that somehow this
reclamation is not going fast enough or well enough so that I am having
contention for the same memory addresses in the aperture vs. memory going to
programs leading to locks and freezes and ultimately BSOD's?
Finally, assuming any of this is conceptually accurate, would reducing my
AGP aperture help resolve some of these conflicts? If so, how small can I
make the aperture for normal day-to-day functions without seeing a real
problem in my graphics ability. I am NOT a hard core gamer, but I do use the
DVD drive for movies and the like. Otherwise, most applications are pretty
standard internet and/or business-type applications (2D rather than 3D for
the most part).
Any thoughts? Am I missing the boat entirely here? Any education about the
AGP aperture in general, and about it's possible relationship to my system
lockups would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers to all. Happy holidays.
Michael
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