Installed video card, now 256MB memory missing!

[gamesandguns]

I just recently upgraded my video card from an Asus 7800GTX to an eVGA 7950GX2. I have 3GB of memory in my system (2x1GB, 2x512MB). When I installed the 7950, my usable system memory dropped to 2.75GB The boot screen shows 3GB total but then has in parenthesis that only 2.75GB is available. The video card has 1GB of memory on it so I know it's not doing stealing from my system. I'm wondering if anyone has seen an issue like this so that I can hopefully get it figured out.

System Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
3GB DDR-400 Memory
Asus A8N-E Mainboard
eVGA 7950GX2 Video Card
Antec NeoHE 550W Power Supply
2x 320GB Seagate SATA Drives in RAID Stripe
T-Balancer Fan Controller

 

[Onus]

A 32-bit OS can only "see" 4GB total memory, including any on the video card. I'm not sure why another 256MB is missing, unless perhaps you did not clear out the old drivers and your system is still allocating space for the 7800GTX.

 

[gamesandguns]

If you install 4GB of memory in a system, it will only see 3.5GB of it, but I'm not even up to that amount yet. I've tried reinstalling the video card driver, but that wouldn't have any effect on what the initial boot screen shows me.

 

[elbert]

I just recently upgraded my video card from an Asus 7800GTX to an eVGA 7950GX2. I have 3GB of memory in my system (2x1GB, 2x512MB). When I installed the 7950, my usable system memory dropped to 2.75GB The boot screen shows 3GB total but then has in parenthesis that only 2.75GB is available. The video card has 1GB of memory on it so I know it's not doing stealing from my system. I'm wondering if anyone has seen an issue like this so that I can hopefully get it figured out.

System Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
3GB DDR-400 Memory
Asus A8N-E Mainboard
eVGA 7950GX2 Video Card
Antec NeoHE 550W Power Supply
2x 320GB Seagate SATA Drives in RAID Stripe
T-Balancer Fan Controller

Your videocards memory is 1GB and you have 3GB's. The other 256 was used for cache, drivers, and bios. Unless you have the retail version of vista and only installed the 32bit version I would just live with the 256mb missing until vista 64bit is widely used. If you must try something disabling some windows services may get some of the 256mb back.