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Win98 + G200 + DVD + PIII Strange behaviour?

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  • Win98 + G200 + DVD + PIII Strange behaviour?

    Hello everybody!

    Straight to business:

    I recently upgraded my system with a PIII450 cpu and Toshiba S-MD1212 DVD-drive.

    Since then, everytime I try in Win to access start-menu (i.e. to click start on the lower-left corner of screen) I get the blue screen stating my application is terminated. I can continue work after that, but applications which were on status bar are terminated.

    This is not related to any particular program, since this happens EVERY time I click the start button.

    Now why I have posted to Matrox discussion group is because it seems Matrox drivers cause this somehow.

    This problem does not occur in SVGA display modes (i.e. something like 1024x768 256 colors) and as soon as I raise color depth or screen resolution this starts happening. (now I haven't tried, but if I remeber correctly it didn't matter on low resolutions which display drivers were used, it just worked)

    I have Abit BH6 mobo with newest BIOS ver. and also G200 has been flashed to newest ver. I have tried 4.51 powerdesk drivers and also the WHQL certified ones to no avail. I haven't tried 4.26 though.

    My windows 98 ver is not new (in fact I think it my be one of the beta versions) but I do not think this is the cause. (unless some "feature" causes this with PIII, but not on PII / Cel, haven't tried yet)

    I have also tried disabling bus mastering on the G200, disabling DVD-drive, underclocking in case my memory was too slow (shouldn't be) and various other tricks, including re-installing WIN98 to no avail.

    In Linux everything works like a charm. I've had it number-crunching for several days now X is also running and not a single lock-up or crash (as it has always worked) so I don't think this is a hardware problem.

    If someone has any suggestions, they're welcome. I even considered bying WIN98, but spending USD 260,00 on OS, which I do not even know if it will correct the problem seems a little too futile.

    Thanks in advance, and I seriously hope someone can help me in this.


    ------------------
    Jari Paljakka
    ace@mainframe.pp.sci.fi


  • #2
    Hi Jari,

    I have the same DVD-drive and after I have installed it, my computer showed similar problems in W98.

    My board has a VIA-chipset and I used the Microsoft Win98 busmaster IDE-drivers with DMA enabled. With this configuration I got lots of blue screens even without accesses to the DVD-drive.

    Therfore I have installed the latest VIA Busmaster IDE-drivers and now I can use the DVD-drive with UDMA33 enabled and I don`t have any BlueScreens any more.

    Bye, Uwe


    ------------------
    ICQ 41229870

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    • #3
      Hi Uwe,

      I didn't even come to think of this as the blue screen occurs only when I click the start button.

      No problems in using HD or DVD and by "feeling" the transfer rates from DVD are what they should be. (haven't measured, though)

      I can access the start menu by right clicking and opening it.

      I also sometimes get the blue screen when I'm trying to restart (ALT + F4, select restart, or when I install some program/drivers and it want's to restart my computer) it starts to shutdown but gives me blue screen and after that a black screen with mouse pointer after which I have to hard reset.

      I'll see which are the newest drivers from ABIT, but if I remember correctly they're from 1997 and intended to use with win95. I'll give them a try anyway and see what happens. (really can't do any damage anyway)

      If someone knows where I could get newer drivers which work with ABIT boards, pointers welcome.

      Thanks for the suggestion, I'll also post the results here.


      ------------------
      Jari Paljakka
      ace@mainframe.pp.sci.fi

      Comment


      • #4
        Um... Well...

        This is something I should've already tried ...I guess I was too tired yesterday.

        Ok. So IDE drivers DMA transfers (or busmaster) were not the issue. I tried generic HD controller and had disabled all DMA transfers but the same problem still persists.

        Instead, I opened graphics acceleration settings, and tested those. I found out that if I take that two notches down (i.e. minimal hardware acceleration only) everything seems to be working as it is supposed.

        Only the performance should be poor now. Wouldn't this be a great performance hit when trying to view DVD videos. I don't know about the game performance. (does that also disable hardware accel for 3D??)

        So now it is confirmed to be a Matrox problem. Probably something in the drivers. Drivers possibly do not like PIII or DVD drive in some strange occurence. I know that PIII should be working, but maybe there is something unique in my setup, however I can't think what it could've been...

        Maybe Powerdesk 5.0 would help me? Anyone know when this for G200 should be available??

        Thanks,

        Jari

        ------------------
        Jari Paljakka
        ace@mainframe.pp.sci.fi

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        • #5
          Ups! Double posting...

          Sorry,

          Jari


          [This message has been edited by Jaripa (edited 06-24-99).]

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