G400 Max DOA?

[bcronin]

Sigh. No joy with my newly arrived G400 Max. I had a G200. I ran the Matrox uninstall utility, powered off, put in the G400 Max, booted up and installed the latest drivers off the web page (W9X_513). I also upgraded the BIOS to the latest. All *seemed* to be working well for a few minutes, but then the trouble began. I'd be opening an explorer window, or an application (e.g. Lotus Notes) and bam, the screen would get corrupted and the system would lock up. First I thought it might have been due to the Max sharing an IRQ with my PCI Ethernet adapter. I switched slots so that the Max had its own IRQ (12), and still no joy. The I tried disabling the "ASSIGN IRQ TO VGA" setting in my system BIOS. Again, no luck. No matter what, I always end up with lockups at seemingly random times (although it did happen every time I tried opening Lotus Notes, which tries to put up a splash screen when it starts, which may be triggering the failure). I yanked the Max and put the G200 back in and all is well. Any ideas? I'll be on the phone with Matrox tech support first thing in the morning. This is on a P3-500, not overclocked at all, ABIT BX6-R2 2.02 motherboard with the latest (MN) BIOS. Win98 SE. 256MB of RAM. Heck, I didn't even get to the point where I could try any 3D games. My system wouldn't stay up long enough. I've either got a bad card (nice after waiting 6 weeks, sigh) or else the current drivers have BIG problems.

[Brian R.]

Check to see if the fan on the video card is running.

[bcronin]

Well, I don't know whether the fan was or was not working during my first try, but I gave it another try after yanking the power connector for the fan out of its plug and replugging it in to make sure it was all the way in) and specifically checked to be sure it was definitely running before putting my system back together, rehooking all the cables, etc. and this time, all is well! So, I'd have to bet that you were correct and that the fan must not have been working the first time. I've had no lockups at all in a half hour, and I had them in minutes before. Thank you VERY much for your excellent suggestion. I can go to sleep happy now.

Cheers,
BC

[Brian R.]

Great - Glad I can help once in a while.

[bcronin]

Sigh. It is happening again. I pulled the PC apart and checked the fan and it is definitely running (and now, with the case off, I don't seem to be having the problem, but I'll bet if I put it back on it will start failing again). I am not overclocking at all (either the processor or the G400 Max) and the BIOS reports a system temperature that is *well* under the threshold where it would start to give over temperature warnings. I wonder if perhaps I have a marginal chip? Suggestions?

[Brian R.]

Might be your case is too hot for the card. Might be a defective chip. See if you can determine your internal case temperature when the lock-up occurs. My typical internal case temperature is around 90-95 F. This is with a seriously hot 10K IBM SCSI HD. I have a tower with good air circulation.

B

[Andrew Vaillant]

I agree with Brian R. Your problem sounds like a poor temperature management problem. With todays hardware, you really need good fans in your case. If you dont already have one, I would definitely get a 80mm case fan and install it. In my system, I have a case fan, a fan for my HD (maxtor 10K IDE), the case is open and I have a large (3/4 foot diameter) pedastel fan blowing in to the case. Granted this seems a bit extreme but it keeps the heat down and things running stable. ALso, check the arrangment of your PCI cards...try to keep the one next to the AGP slot free, this greatly increases the heat dissipation abilities of the fan/heatsink. Finally, if your mobo, like mine has temperature monitoring capabilities, you might want to get yourself a few thermistor heat probes to monitor chip temperature. I have one for my CPU and one for the g400 max. They usually are never above 40deg C.

[Sprocket]

I have the same mobo and know your problem, as I encountered the same: get the PD5.x reg hacks and force AGP 1x, all will go away, trust me I lived with those random lockups for a week or so until I found out what the heck it was. AGP 2x should be fixed in later PowerDesk revisions. I highly doubt it is heat, I owned an ATi Rage128 pre release that didnt even have a heatsink or fan on it, ran fine.

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Specs: Abit BX6 R2, Celeron 466@525 (Alpha socket370 heatsink/fan), 128Mb PC100 SDRAM, Western Digital Caviar 10.1Gb UDMA/33, WDC 850Mb, 12x CAV CDROM, Matrox G400 32Mb DH, SBLive! value, Altec Lansing ADA305, 3Com NIC, all in an Addtronics case the size of Wisconsin.

[bcronin]

Yes, my case temp is virtually never more than 40c. I have an InWin Q500 tower with a PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 300. I also have an extra fan and have moved all my PCI cards so that there are 3 open slots between the G400 Max and the nearest PCI card. I've checked and rechecked the cooling fan on the G400. All is well. Nothing inside the case is even warm to the touch.

So, where do I get these PowerDesk registry hacks, please?

[Rob Morriss]

sounds a_LOT_like my problems (see G400 Max + BH6..) Funny thing is, my friend has almost the same setup as me. BH6, G400 max, same OS revision, same driver revision, same BIOS revisions. He's got a celeron 300A @ 450, I've got a PIII 450 @ 450. Mine crashes, his doesn't, go figure

[Sprocket]

Here: http://www.murc.ws/Utils/PD5RegHacks.zip

Run forceagp1x.reg, reboot, and you should be running agp1x


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Specs: Abit BX6 R2, Celeron 466@525 (Alpha socket370 heatsink/fan), 128Mb PC100 SDRAM, Western Digital Caviar 10.1Gb UDMA/33, WDC 850Mb, 12x CAV CDROM, Matrox G400 32Mb DH, SBLive! value, Altec Lansing ADA305, 3Com NIC, all in an Addtronics case the size of Wisconsin.

[Brian R.]

I didn't think to mention it, but I also have that motherboard and have had no such problems

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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.]

Also, have an internal case temperature of 40C is much hotter than mine. I was only guessing at my internal temperature. I have purchased an outdoor thermocouple thermometer from Radio Shack and have the thermocouple mounted on the heatsink of my processor (450 @ 581 MHz). The air coming from my heatsink is normally 40C. This is air that has already cooled my processor. Also, I have a 80-mm fan in the front of my case blowing cool air directly at my cards.

Keep the case open with a fan blowing on it and, if this keeps you stable, I think you are overheating. Having space around your video card has no effect if there is nothing but warm air to cool the chip.

IMHO

[GD]

I 'm probably wrong but I do not believe you have a heat problem... The fact that the system is ok with the case opened makes me think that the cases somewhere touches the motherboard. This always causes wierd problems. for example the pc of a friend of mine would not recognise all the ram installed

i hope it helps...

[WaterMan]

If your G200 worked well in your system then the G400 should, I Had to send my 1st G400 Max back because of this. After installing the new G400 Max everything is fine. Before Matrox will give you an RMA they won't you to verify the card want work in two different computers. The G400 works best on IRQ 11. Also Make sure there is no other PCI card in the Top slot next to AGP slot.