Integrated Intel GMA3100 - manual disable?

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One of my PCs has an integrated Intel GMA3100 video card (G33 chipset). But I also have a dedicated PCI x16 card in there and am not using the GMA3100.

I've read somewhere that the GMA3100 automatically disables itself when you install a PCI x16 card onto the motherboard. Windows (Vista) device manager does not display it under "Display Adapters" anymore. However, when I scan system specs using Lavalys Everest, it tells me that GMA3100 is enabled. Is this just an error by Everest, or is there a way to manually disable GMA3100?

gma3100_enabled.png
 
Software error most likely. You can probably choose in the bios which video to try first. Its not really choosing per say, just telling it where to look for video first.
 
Hammer anyone?
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I wouldn't worry about it if it's not interfering with your O/S and just showing up during a hardware scan.
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My only concern was that if the integrated card is not fully switched off, it may still be taking up some of my RAM since the RAM is shared with this on-board card. But I don't even know how to check if some RAM is still in fact being taken up by it.
 
Right click on "my computer" and see if the amount of memory available looks right compared to what you have in your computer. If it's less (usually by 64MB or more) than memory is most likely being used by the integrated video.
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Right click on "my computer" and see if the amount of memory available looks right compared to what you have in your computer. If it's less (usually by 64MB or more) than memory is most likely being used by the integrated video.
+1
 
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Right click on "my computer" and see if the amount of memory available looks right compared to what you have in your computer. If it's less (usually by 64MB or more) than memory is most likely being used by the integrated video.

I don't think it works that way. I have another PC with an integrated graphics card (shared memory), and 1 GB RAM, and when I go to My Computer/Properties, it shows that the entire 1 GB is still available.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: brianl703
Right click on "my computer" and see if the amount of memory available looks right compared to what you have in your computer. If it's less (usually by 64MB or more) than memory is most likely being used by the integrated video.

I don't think it works that way. I have another PC with an integrated graphics card (shared memory), and 1 GB RAM, and when I go to My Computer/Properties, it shows that the entire 1 GB is still available.


Some of the more modern on-board solutions have a small amount of dedicated video RAM on-board (like 8MB) and then borrow from the system RAM as needed. Yours sounds like one of those setups.
 
I have a computer with Intel 945 graphics. It has 1GB of RAM but Windows says it has 0.98GB of RAM. The remaining .02GB is used as video memory.
 
I see. The one I was checking it on has the 845 chipset.

The one that has GMA3100 chipset also shows that all memory is available (3GB in this case). I guess I won't worry about it.
 
I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 with 3GB of RAM and it is using 192mb for on-board nVidia 6150SE video. So my available memory is just shy of 3GB. I'm ok with that because I can open everything I've got and 20 tabs on eBay in FF3 and still have a gig and a half left over.

That would be annoying if Vista needs to keep the GMA3100 enabled to start up. If it can be disabled, I wonder if the computer would be able to boot? That would be awful if it couldn't. I'm so glad I don't have an available x16 slot or else I might be fighting it to get it to work with a video card. Onboard seems to work well for surfing, 3D gaming, just not anything involved like Crysis or whatever.
 
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