EN8600GT Silent 256mb major memory issue

dmayner · Dec 30, 2007, 02:11 PM

I sure hope someone here can help me figure this out. I tried Asus tech support and Nvidia, but they don't know what is going on. I have an Asus 8600gt silent 256mb, but no matter what system information program that I use it tells me that my card has 512mb. There is one exception a program called GPU-Z actually tells that I have 256mb. So, I am wondering if this is something I should be concerned about? Is it a driver issue (BTW I am using 169.21 forceware)? Is it a windows or hardware issue? Well, thanks for any thoughts or opinions on this.

Dave

Oh, I am running XP pro

***temeteus82*** · Dec 30, 2007, 02:19 PM

Hi there and Welcome to DriverHeaven!

Is the card AGP or PCI-E card?

dmayner · Dec 30, 2007, 02:33 PM

It is a PCI-E

Tipstaff · Dec 30, 2007, 08:13 PM

My guess is that it's combination of both hardware and software. Most of the smarter/better programs will be able to tell exactly how much ram is on the card by actually seeing the ram on the card. The more "dumber" programs will do a quick scan of the video card, and give you an answer based on what the card tells it. If the bios on the card says it's a 512mb 8600GT, then the program is gonna report that back to you... even if it's not a 512mb card. Also, some programs have a set list of cards in their database, and when they check your card they bring back a listing from their database of cards. Problem is that if the list is too old, or doesn't have your specific card in the list (or supported series), it will bring back an answer based on what it thinks your card has compared to a similar card in the series.

In the case of GPU-Z, it's one of the smart ones. You can see that the program is current, and if you go through the list of changes you can see the amount of updates for specific cards, and the listings on how it detects things.