Dell Inspiron 1501 Graphics Card Troubleshoot

The stupid ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 keeps eating away at my memory. When I go open the Catalyst Center, go to "advanced," then go change the UMA buffer to 32MB it still eats up 512MB worth of memory (I have 1GB worth of memory installed). It says 768MB of RAM under "My Computer --> properties." I have tried several times to change it to a lower UMA but it still eats up the same amount of memory. Sometimes it even lowers my CPU speed from 1.78 GHz to 700 something MHz (with the adapter plugged in. Do you guys have any idea why this is acting like that or is it suppose to act weird?

 

BIOS settings. You should be able to set the graphics card to use its own memory only (switch from shared to whatever other option it gives you) otherwise it will eat as much as 512mb of RAM at a time.

The CPU and GPU have auto-throttling capability, when you have power settings set to standard it will keep them low unless needed. Set the power settings to max performance and they will always be running at maximum clock speed.

 

I am having the same problems. AND, there IS no option in the BIOS on the 1501 to change the UMA. Mine sometimes uses 128, sometimes 16, sometimes 256. And the system properties changes without me changing anything. I too change the advanced properties of ATI to no avail, have you had any luck finding out what is going on? If I change the option in ATI, nothing changes, and since there is no option in the BIOS, I am stuck. Help. Anyone.

 

the memory is dynamicaly allocated, it takes what it needs when it needs it, if you feel its eating up too much, check what programs are running and try to isolate the one thats using it, the xpress 1150 on the 1501 uses system memory only, it has no dedicated memory

The cpu speed ramps down when the system isnt being pushed, you really cant disable it, and you shouldnt if you could, you will get no performance increase,as it ramps up to full the instant it needs to, running the cpu at full power all the time will only generate much more heat, and tank your battery if your not plugged in

 

Thank you for your response. I do understand about the CPU throttle, and by the way, you can disable the CPU from "stepping down" by setting your power options to "always on". I found this out through a different forum, and was grateful. It really helps when you are playing games without your a/c adapter. However, CPU throttling has nothing to do with the UMA size. Other notebooks I have used used integrated "hypermemory" as well, and ALL of them had an option in either the BIOS or the Advanced Properties of the adapter. This laptop not only doesn't have the option in the BIOS, but it when you change it in the ATI Control Panel, it has no effect. One strange note: Every once in a while, the system (at the BIOS screen) only steals 128mb of RAM instead of the normal 256mb or RAM. Once I get the system booted, if I go into the ATI Control Panel and set it back to 256, and reboot, then it returns back to 256 (at the BIOS Screen). The problem for me is that I use MS Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server, and sometimes I need all of the RAM I can get, so therefore I need a way to switch between using 128 and 256 reliably. If anyone has any suggestions, beside which has already been discussed, please let me know.

Also, more stangeness: Both XP and Vista report the ATI xpress 1150 video card as "ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 with 512mb of RAM" instead of the 256mb Dell indicates. Futhermore, if you download the driver from ATI for this card, the driver install halts with a message "setup did not find a driver compatible with your current hardware". I have tried several drivers from ATI, with the same result. The driver from Dell was release in November, and has a driver date of September 22, 2006. The drivers on ATI website are new in December. Again, any addtional help would be wonderful.

 

I'm having the same problem. I did notice via support.dell.com that there is a new BIOS for the 1501 as of 12/12. I'm going to try the new BIOS later today to see if there are any additional options relating to the video card.

 

This is why I got rid of the laptop. Integrated Graphics is a pain in the butt.

 

integrated graphics can be good or bad depending on your uses and or expectations of your system, a lot of posters here seem to expect too much

 

Finally. While I disagree with the negative comments about integrated video, I agree it has it's up's and down's. After reading the comment from "laleger", I revisited the Dell website for the BIOS update. I had just updated the BIOS in November, so I didn't think there was another one. I was wrong, the BIOS update in December 1.7.0 has solved this mystery. Although you still cannot change the UMA size in the BIOS settings, at least the Advanced properties of the ATI driver can modify it. Strangely, you can only change back and forth from 128 to 256 and back to 128, but that was all I was really looking for anyway. My lockups have stopped, and I can now set the video for Games or for MS Virtual PC as needed. Thank you laleger for reminded me to check the BIOS version, that was ignorant on my part.

Integrated video may not be the most desirable of video options, but for an inexpensive laptop, it really works very well (now that the video UMA change can be made).

 

I was having the same problem, i've installed the latest version of the video drivers from Dell, without success, and also the combo box for choose the UMA value is dissapeared, but after the installation of the new drivers i've executed again the BIOS update with a big change in the performace as result.

I think that the BIOS update execution resets the UMA value (now invisible) to 128, but how could be changed to 256?