H55M-S2H: Issues related to shared graphics memory... Help please?

[starjet]

My motherboard is H55M-S2H, and it's coupled with a Core i3-530 processor, and 2GB of Kingston ValueRAM.

These aren't very big issues, but I'm curious to know what's happening.
1) I can't set the graphics memory to 32(+2)MB. Not that I really need to, but if I do set it to 32MB in BIOS setup, the system refuses to boot. It keeps going on a cycle of reboots. I have to use CLR_CMOS to get out of it.
2) Some RAM is missing. For example, if I set graphics memory to 128(+2)MB, I have only 1788MB usable RAM, meaning 260MB is used, whereas it should use only 130MB.I set graphics memory to 64(+2)MB, but 196MB was used, making me wonder where the remaining 132MB went. This remains the same whether I have memory set to DVMT or Fixed.

Does anyone know what's going on?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

This phenomenon is a "feature" of the chipset and has caused many questions to be asked over the past months. If you want more detail I would suggest searching the forum's history for it.

I take it that you are running a 32 bit Operating System as you only have 2 GB of memory installed. It would be advisable to increase that especailly as you are using some for graphics.

[starjet]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, I use 32bit Win7 Ultimate. Didn't see any reason to go for 64bit since I have only 2GB. So far 2GB has been enough, even for some light gaming.

I tried to look in the forum, but all I came up with is the DVMT issue. But even if I set memory to Fixed and not DVMT, I still have 260MB missing instead of the 130MB that it should be. Is it something else? Can you tell me what I should search for? Thanks.

EDIT: I found this: http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/39790-possible-use-full-4gb-ga-h55m-ud2h.html

I don't really understand why that extra amount is taken by the GPU, but it seems to say that using 64bit Windows will prevent this. Will an upgrade to 64bit help?

EDIT2: Looks like that won't help either. I just found this:
I don't really understand that memory mapping, though. But that does nicely add up to the 196MB shared when onboard graphics memory is set to only 64MB.

[Dark Mantis]

An upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit and another 2 GB of memory would help but don't be tempted to upgrade just the memory because you will lose even more then because of the 3.5 GB capability of 32 bit windows to manage it.

[starjet]

Okay, so this has to be a Gigabyte issue. I just upgraded F1 to F7 so I could use ONOFFCharge, and lost another 4MB.

[Dark Mantis]

All programs and utilities will use up your memory. As long as they release it when the are shut down that is normal.

[starjet]

No, no, you misunderstand me. I mean the "Hardware Reserved" bit, that's not being used by Windows. It used to be 261MB before the BIOS update.