BUG Report: GPU-Z Fails to Provide Graphics Related Information

[Ascii2]

I wanted to report a problem that I am am experiencing using GPU-Z. The problem seems to apply to all stable versions that I have tried (0.7.1, 0.4.6, and 2.4.0).

When trying to query information using the GPU-Z utility, no graphics related information is provided. I first noticed the problem to manifest after an installation of an additional monitor and the update of device drivers and multiple monitor management software. The multiple monitor management software that was updated was UltraMon, from version 2.7.1 to version 3.3.0; the device drivers that were updated were the UltraMon mirroring driver, the nVidia display driver, nVidia PhysX driver, nVidia High Definition Audio Driver, and the monitors' drivers.

I am using Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 and have a multiple monitor configuration, using precisely three monitors. The monitors are connected to two graphics card, both of which are from the same brand, model, and product codes; further, their Video BIOS is the same.

I have attached windows pictures and information collected by software for reference and examination.

 

[W1zzard]

Is the card listed in device manager?

 

[Naki]

Windows XP is long dead. What CPU & how much RAM do you use?
Why do you not use Windows 10?
It needs no such multi-monitor tweaks, as it supports multiple taskbars, windows per display just fine & built-in into OS, no need to use extra software.

EDIT: Your forum thread title is not good. When asking for help, you might want to add a proper thread title, describing the problem in short, such as using 4-5 words.
For example: Problem with GPU-Z showing no info.

 

[Ascii2]

Is the card listed in device manager?

There are two cards, actually; and yes they are.

 

[Static~Charge]

Windows XP is long dead. What CPU & how much RAM do you use?
Why do you not use Windows 10?
It needs no such multi-monitor tweaks, as it supports multiple taskbars, windows per display just fine & built-in into OS, no need to use extra software.

Those are irrelevant considerations.

• GPU-Z is compatible with Windows XP, even if it is old.

• The CPU and RAM size don't matter, since GPU-Z obviously runs on his computer.

EDIT: Your forum thread title is not good. When asking for help, you might want to add a proper thread title, describing the problem in short, such as using 4-5 words.
For example: Problem with GPU-Z showing no info.

Agreed. That thread title is very poor.

 

[Naki]

No, I mean if he has a decent dual-core (or more) CPU and at least 3 GB of RAM, moving to Windows 10 is the obvious choice.
Unless of course using software or games that only work on WinXP, which could be the case.

 

[Ascii2]

Your forum thread title is not good.

Agreed. That thread title is very poor.

Sorry about the title, it appears to have truncated. I shall try to fix it.

EDIT: Title has been fixed.

 

[Static~Charge]

No, I mean if he has a decent CPU and at least 3 GB RAM, moving to Windows 10 is the obvious choice.
Unless of course using software or games that only work on WinXP, which could be the case.

The problem at hand is that GPU-Z doesn't display any information about his video card. If he chooses to run XP, and GPU-Z is compatible with XP, then asking why he doesn't use Windows 10 is off-topic.

 

[W1zzard]

Do you run any less common anti-virus or anything else that could affect security? Any special tweaks like disabled services?

 

[Ascii2]

I have noticed that the GPU-Z sometimes displays or outputs almost correctly when run with the only problem I notice is that it fails to enumerate on of the video cards. I am attaching a picture illustrating the missing enumeration of a video card. Much of the time, however, GPU-Z still fails to show video card information at all.

Do you run any less common anti-virus or anything else that could affect security?

I am not sure how common its (yet I suspect it to be), but I use the security software Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 10.2.6.3733 (also known as Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows Service Pack 1 Maintenance Release 4), for its anti-virus protection.

To test:

1. I uninstalled the security software and cleaned up with the dedicated Kaspersky Lab product removal tool and tested to see whether the problem would still manifest. The problem did indeed continue to manifest.
   
2. I disabled the UltraMon 3.3.0 multi-monitor and windows management software to test to see if GPU-Z problems would still manifest. The problem did indeed continue to manifest.

Any special tweaks like disabled services?

What did come to mind is the boot configuration; I use Physical Address Extension and 4GT RAM Tuning (which I believe is known as 4 GB RAM Tuning on NT6+ Windows oprating systems). Although this is nothing that special (and it really is very important on 32-bit Windows in modern times for systems that use at least 4 GB of RAM), it is not something that is enabled by default.

I am attaching a ZIP 2.0 archive with a nicely-formatted list of the services with related information that are being used for the local machine.

 

[Ascii2]

What did come to mind is the boot configuration; I use Physical Address Extension and 4GT RAM Tuning (which I believe is known as 4 GB RAM Tuning on NT6+ Windows oprating systems). Although this is nothing that special (and it really is very important on 32-bit Windows in modern times for systems that use at least 4 GB of RAM), it is not something that is enabled by default.

I tested GPU-Z with the different boot configurations.

I have concluded that GPU-Z fails to behave properly when 4GT RAM Tuning is used; if 4GT RAM Tuning is disabled GPU-Z functions as expected.
EDIT: It is also worth noting that in my tests, having Physical Address Extension enabled seems to make the problem worse. When 4GT RAM Tuning was used, while Physical Address Extension was not, the problem was not always observable; sometimes GPU-Z would display it should be expected.

I have attached a picture showing the main GPU-Z windows when the 4GT RAM Tuning is not set.

EDIT: Wrong picture was previously uploaded to this post. Post has been updated with correct picture.

 

[W1zzard]

Nice find! I'll try to reproduce locally and see if there is something I can do to fix

 

[Ascii2]

For those looking to reproduce this issue, configure the boot loader for the following on systems with at least 4 GB of physical RAM (the issue might also manifest on systems with less than 4 GB of RAM, but I have not tried it):

For the NTLDR boot loader, configure the boot.ini file to boot an entry with the /3GB parameter. For example, I use the following line from the my boot.ini file:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=alwaysOff /fastdetect /PAE /3GB

The /3GB parameter may still be usable on systems with less than 4 GB of RAM, but I have never tried it. The /userva subparameter may optionally be specified to proceed the /3GB parameter with an explicit value in megabytes of the user-mode virtual address space allowance.

Windows Vista and many newer Windows operating systems do not use the NTLDR boot loader and mange memory allocation differently than on Windows NT 5.x series operating systems. I have not checked whether GPU-Z has the problem described in this thread on those operating systems. The Windows Boot Manager may be configured to use an explicit user-mode virtual address space by setting the IncreaseUserVA variable for the boot configuration and giving it a value (a number representing the user-mode address space in megabytes). For example, if using the BCDEDIT utility to configure the boot loader to use a user-mode address space of 3 GB, the following would be used:

bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVa 3072

Nice find! I'll try to reproduce locally and see if there is something I can do to fix

Thank you, I look forward to it.