motherboard or G400?

[Allan2]

I'm usually the last person to post for help but this time I'm really at a loss.

In about the last month or so I've been having problems with my G400 not re- initializing my monitor after a shutdown. As long as the computer is on and running I have no problems. All my games run fine and there is no tearing at all.

Then today, I shut down the computer and nothing I could do would make the monitor reinitialize at startup. I reseated the G400 in the AGP slot as I heard that was often a problem. After fooling with it for an hour, I grabbed my old TNT board from the closet and it worked perfectly.

My thinking is that either; 1. the monitor connection for some reason on my G400 is dead or dying or 2. my motherboard (Abit Be6) is not having problems with the board.

The strange thing is that the Be6 hasn't had any problems up until now so it's strange that they would suddenly appear. If it happened from the outset I would suspect the motherboard but that hasn't been the case.

As a last resort, I'm going to try to take the card over to a friends house to check it on his computer.

Any ideas? I registered my G400 with Matrox. I wonder how difficult it would be to get a replacement?

[Neil]

My only thought is check the monitor cable. Are one of the pins slightly pushed in? Maybe it is not making contact with the connector on the g400.

Another thing to try is to jiggle the cable and see if the monitor responds.

[IceStorm]

I had a similar problem. Warm boots would not work. Cold boots were fine.

The problem seems to be power related. Both my G200 and G400 MAX would not boot. Even a new motherboard didn't help.

I finally got a new power supply, but by then it didn't matter, I had bought an Athlon, and moved some gear to it, and *poof* - power problem gone.

Anywho, it may not be your card. Try to get another power supply to test with. Antec's 300 Watt unit is $35 from Buy.com.

Just my $0.02



------------------
Primary System: Athlon 550, MSI 6167 mb w/BIOS 1.3, 3x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode, Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster Live!, DeskTop Theater DTT2500 DIGITAL Speaker System (Sweeeeeet!), WDC WD20 5AA 20GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Gravis Xterminator gamepad (no DX7 drivers yet), Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM, 10/100 5-port Linksys Ethernet switch, Epson 1200u scanner, Epson Stylus Pro printer, Logitech QuickCam Pro with the little stand and the lense kit (cool).

Secondary System: PIII-450, Soyo 6BA+ IV, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium G200 AGP, V2 SLI rig, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster 32, WD AC41800 18GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

Tertiary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium II, 3Com 3C905, 3Com 3C509, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, Seagate 1GB Hawk, Quantum DLT 4000 tape drive, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Quaternary System: Ocean Rhino 9 motherboard w/Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 4x64MB EDO Parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Haven't chosen an OS yet.

And a JetDirect EX print server that bootp's its address from the Tertiary System.

All specs subject to change.

-The pessimist says: "The glass is half empty."
The optimist says: "The glass is half full."
The engineer says: "I put half of my water
in a redundant glass."

[Allan2]

I checked the monitor cable connection and it's fine. It works perfectly with my old TNT card so I don't think that's the problem unless there's something wrong with that connection internally on the G400.

I should have mentioned that just last week I went out and bought a new 400watt powersupply so I don't think power is the problem

[mj12]

Out of curiosity, have you tried your g400 in a different pc?

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[Allan2]

I just tried installing a new bios with no luck. My monitor is still not receiving any info from the G400. This is driving me crazy; I love my G400 but I think it's lost to me. My old TNT just can't cut it for quality I want and I can't just put down the money for another G400 or G400max. I dread the thought but maybe a Voodoo3 will have to tide me over until Matrox releases their next gen product.

I have no way to test my card in another computer until at least next Sunday and possibly not until longer. Arrghhhh.....

[Scytale]

Maybe your new shiny power supply is the source of the problem... even the best PS suppliers are known to screw up occasionaly. Or maybe it's just the PS cables/connectors...

[Allan2]

One of the reasons I bought the new power supply was because I was having problems like that with the G400. I would shut down the computer and try to restart but the monitor wouldn't initilize. After three or four tries it would kick in. I thought it was because I had recently added a CDR to my system and I was drawing too much power. Considering the two video cards I've since tested in the system seem to work fine I doubt it's the power supply or the PS connectors since those are all new as well.

I've got a feeling the only way I'm going to get to the bottom of this problem is to stick my G400 in someone else's computer.
I wish I had someone who lived nearby with a computer to try it out on. Somehow I don't think my boss would appreciate me cracking open the companies computers to test the card

I don't know what to think because the G400 has worked fine for the past three months and has had none of the problems others have posted about.

[rob_b]

Have you tried updating the bios recently ?
If that failed, you will see the same symptoms you see now. Or maybe you wiped out
the bios for some other reason ...rob_b

[schmuak]

you mentioned that you added a new CDR - trying unplugging the power to that and try again. there may be too many things drawing power from your PS.

[Allan2]

Thanks for the advice, I tried it but that doesn't work, either. I think the new 400 watt power supply with it's 6 or 7 cables is quite capable of feeding enough power to all my devices. Hell, most high end systems only have a 300 watt supply. My new PS is one of the Athlon approved ones and I was having the G400 problems before it arrived.

[bryanwang]

I'm having almost the same problem. I lost the text mode display but the interesting thing is I can still get graphic mode. Just can't start any DOS box. I tried to refresh the bios but the utility report an error code 0x300, which I can't find any explanation for it... Have written to Matrox tech support and hope they can find something for me.

PS. I also put my old ASUS AGP-3000 back in and it works fine...

PII266 (300 @ 4*75Mhz), 128 MB, ASUS P2L97

[Jadawin]

I have exactly the same problem! Starting a DOSbox will instantly reboot my PC. My monitor will be on standby until windows graphic mode is entered. And I get the same errormessage when trying to flash the bios of the G400. Please post any solutions! (I started a new topic today concerning this)

Jadawin

[Wilhelm]

Hi Allan2,
I have exactly the same problem, except for the fact that I've had it from the very moment I popped my G400 Max in my new Athlon system, so I haven't even had the chance to install Windows yet. This makes it hard to tell whether I would get anything in graphics mode. I already took the card to the dealer that I bought it from, and they tested it on another machine (they wouldn't let me in the back room, though) and reported that it worked OK. All I got out of them was, that they installed it on a Windows NT system and it "worked OK". Don't know whether they got the bootscreen and all that.

I got my card to work for a few times after I removed the metal bracket to ensure a perfect fit in the AGP slot (the bracket caught on to the backplate of my case and I wasn't sure if it was properly seated). I even got the card to work with the metal bracket, when I first installed the card with the metal bracket loose and then carefully screwed it on with only 2 screws (using the 2 remaining screws for the secondary output would cause it to not display an image), but after I had powered it off and back on for a few times it again failed (survived like a dozen resets, though). I haven't managed to get it working since, although I reseated the card in the slot several times, with and without the bracket.

I'm running out of ideas, but next I'm going to see if the problem is power-related by unhooking my case fans and CD-RW & DVD drives to make sure that there's enough power. The other possibility is that the BIOS has somehow been screwed, but I really can't know as I haven't managed to install Windows yet...

I hope someone will come up with an answer to this problem, as I'm really baffled and frustrated with this.




[This message has been edited by Wilhelm (edited 13 December 1999).]

[Allan2]

I managed to get my g400 working again by reseating my motherboard using mounting studs instead of the cheesy plastic studs I had before. There must have been a short somewhere.
Now I'm getting pink halos on my icons and sometimes when I play intense games like Q3A I get screen corruption. I think it really is fried. I've tried everything to solve the new problem including a total reinstall of Windows, DirectX 7 and the drivers. I don't know how much longer it's going to last but I really don't have the money to buy a new card right now.