Matrox G400 Woes

[chupaardilla]

I have a gigabyte GA-6BXE motherboard (w.P3 450). My system works fine with my old velocity 4400 (tnt)video adapter.
I have recently recieved a Matrox G400 MAX card and with this card my monitor will not power up during bootup. My monitor is a NEC XV 17+ and is on the matrox approved monitors list for this card.

The tech at Matrox said that the only problem they have seen with no image on boot up is caused by an aperture setting of 64 in the BIOS. I cannot for the life of me find where I can change the aperture setting.

Please help.........

[Brian R.]

The AGP aperture is found in your computer setup. Some time immediately after you start your computer and before Windows loads, you should see a statement like "PRESS DEL FOR SETUP" or something like that. Hit the delete key and enter your setup program. My AGP aperture is in the CHIPSET OPTIONS submenu. Search through your menus and change the aperture size to 128 MB or, if you don't have that choice, 256 MB. Reboot and see what happens.

Good luck. This is likely to fix your problem if you have an Intel MB. I have heard they are the MBs which may exhibit this behavior.

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450 PIII @ 581 MHz, abit BX6-2, G400 MAX, Diamond V2 SLI, Diamond MX300, CL Dxr3 Decoder, Adaptec 2940 w/uw
SCSI

[Brian R.]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you need to save the changes you made to your BIOS before you exit the SETUP program.

B

[Dilitante1]

you also need to put the old vid card in so you can see what you are doing too
make the changes....
THEN reinsert the G400 and watch it fly

[Brian R.]

Good idea

[chupaardilla]

Yeah I failed to mention that I have looked all throughout my setup and there is no aperture setting. Gigabyte will not respond to my emails so I'm stuck. Do any of you use a gigabyte MB?

[DK_]

Hi,

Don't get me wrong, are you sure the card is seated all the way, I have had this problem with an old card, seems to be in all the way, couldn't figure it out, even popped it out a couple of times, then one last time putting it back in it worked.

Check the easiest stuff 1st.

Your other question, you should see it in bios setup as stated above, thats where mine is,I have an award bios, is yours a Ami or phoenix bios? I don't know what's on your motherboard.
I hope this helps in anyway possible.

Derek

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Intel P2-400@448 (112), Asus P2B (1008), G400 SH 32meg OEM, 128 cas 3 PC100, WD 6.4HD, Sb Live value, KDS AV7T, Memorex 48x, Iomega Int. Zip, USR 56k V90, Yamaha YST-M15, Teac 3.5.

[Song]

After I had removed my old CL Banshee 16Mb AGP, and slotted-in new OEM G400 16Mb AGP, there was also no output to the monitor at all upon power-up system. A long beep follow by two short beeps indicates an Award BIOS video error.

What I did was to reset the BIOS settings(aka DEFAULT BIOS settings), then put back the CL Banshee, make these changes to BIOS:
Graphics Aperture Size=256
VGA BIOS Sequence=AGP/PCI
then place the G400 properly into the AGP slot and boot!! :-D

Everthing else was sweet after all the initial mess. I did came across several posts within this forum that indicates a no video output upon swapping video cards and booting system. Maybe it has something got to do with compatability problems with some mobo BIOS and the G400 BIOS.

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AsusP5A rev1007, K6-400 o/c to 448 (112*4), 128Mb Micron PC100 -8E SDRAM, G400 OEM 16Mb AGP, IBM 16GP 8.4, Quantum ST 3.2A, Toshiba 32X CDROM, HP CDWriter 7570i, SBLive! Value, Intel EtherXpress Pro 100TX NIC, Motorola CableModem, RIC 17" Monitor, HP Deskjet 710C, Altec Lansing ACS45 & Cambridge PCWorks,

[Tumu]

There is NO AGP aperature setting in GA-6BXE mobo, it determines the correct value automagically (I think by looking at the total memory available).

Atleast get the newest bios for your 6BXE from
http://www.giga-byte.com/gigabyte-web/newindex.htm , Support->Motherboards - BIOS & Utilities->Intel 440BX AGPset..->6bxe_33.zip or newer and remember to read the instructions at the top of the page.
Also set the Init Display first or smth setting in BIOS Setup to AGP instead of PCI.

For the monitor problem, the following thread could be the case with your setup too:
http://forums.gagames.com/forums/For...ML/003802.html

-Tumu


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Celeron 333 (not overclocked), GigaByte 6BXE Intel 440BX AGPset Mobo (bios v3.2),
64MB PC100 RAM, G200 AGP 8MB SGRAM (not overclocked, a 486 fan included, bios v2.3), Win95OSR2.1 finnish, PD5.13.020, SB16 Value ISA

[chupaardilla]

Yeah the card is seated properly. Thanks for answering my question about the aperture on the Gigabyte MB.

I am using the latest BIOS for my board.

Is it possible that the board is automatically selecting 64 as the aperture?

I'm almost to the point of returning the G400 MAX. I have been eagerly awaiting it's arrival and when I get it..... well that's life.

I would definitely appreciate any more advice.

[The PIT2]

Do you have access to another machine so you could try the G400 in that. If it works in another machine it indicates a problem with the gigabyte and if not it confirms your G400 up the swanny.

[KvHagedorn]

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