General Protection Error - Hardware problem?

[J.O.N]

Hello All,

I have a Marvel G400-TV, and it was working fine from when I bought it back in December. After having installed Word 97, there are huge problems, and I don't know if it is the Word installation (which I very much doubt) or a sudden hardware failure which would require replacement.

The problem is:
When I try to boot (Win95 OSR 2.1) just the desktop would appear there is some nasty screen corruption and then MSDOS reports 'Windows General Protection Error - Please restart the machine'. When I reboot, the display settings are now generic VGA, with 16 colours and 640* resolution.

I have tried everything I can think of including using the matrox uninstall program, and reinstalling the latest official driver (5.41).

As I said, it was working perfectly well, with 1024* resolution, 32bit colour, blah blah blah, which suggests to me that the card itself as gone wrong somehow. But the generical PCI VGA driver produces a picture - albeit at low resolution and only 16 colours.

I've tried searching the forum archives and can't find anything similar - can anyone help? I don't even know the procedure to return the card to Matrox (I'm in the UK).

J.O.N.

[Crazy Train]

Hmm, it sounds like we are having similar problems. I too use Office 97; now you have me wondering if that has anything to do with my driver problems. I really doubt it is the card, because with older G400 drivers, my PC was running fine. I'll let you know if I discover exactly what the problem is. I would also explain your problem to Matrox Tech Support via email. I've noticed similar threads to ours in this newsgroup; I'm sure Matrox has some explanation for the Protection Error problem.

[MadCat]

Make sure youve installed the SR1 and SR2 patches, Im running Office SR-2 with no problems.

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This Signature Space FOR SALE / RENT

[J.O.N]

It would be nice to think that it was a simple software conflict, but I had every piece of Office 97 SR1 software installed before without any conflicts at all. In fact I had loads of software installed that I never used, and I was running out of space on my 6Gb main hard drive so I reformatted and re-installed a few weeks ago. I only got round to re-installing Word 97 recently, so the re-installation of Windows and other stuff didn't the problem either...

[HollyBerri]

Taking the angle that it has something to do with the Office97 install, I have a few questions.[list=1][*]What is your memory situation? Office97's typical install adds a few resource hogs to your startup (Office Startup and FindFast, most notably). Could you possibly be low on memory?[*]The word 'swapfile' comes to mind. Does Windows have enough room to run in?[*]Hmmm...Win95 OSR 2.1. Did you install the USB supp when you reinstalled Windows? AGP needs it to run...and are you a SS7 (K6-2 or -3) user? With the latest VIA AGP drivers?[*]IE. I believe Office97 installs IE 4 in the typical install (I never use the typical install, but I know M(icro)S(oft)... had you previously had IE 5 installed? It could be that Office97 replaced a newer file with an older one somewhere...[*]Windows booting to 640*480 in 16 colors without being in safe mode implies that your videocard is not correctly installed. Have you:[/list=a]<blockquote>

• uninstalled PD with the utility, changed your display adapter to VGA, gone into Safe Mode and deleted all display adapters (and any multiple instances of any other hardware), rebooted back into Windows and reinstalled the G400?
• confirmed/set your monitor correctly (Windows install seems to set up 'Plug and Play monitor' a lot of the time and it's easy to forget to change it-- but PD doesn't seem to much like that)?</blockquote>

I take it that we can assume ("assume nothing dear..." ) that when you reformatted your drive--and this was a reformat of the same drive, not an install of a new/additional one, yes?-- you didn't take the opportunity to:[list=1][*]install new hardware?[*]move any internal cards from slot to slot?[*]change any BIOS settings?[*]overclock your system?[*]try a tweak utility such as Powerstrip?[*]You didn't do anything that might have unseated your card, right?[/list=a]

I don't know enough about the TV features to know if they might have had settings disturbed... someone else will have to take that issue on.

Seems to me that more info might be useful... basic system specs at least. If you've had no unusual circumstances (flashing the card's BIOS, overclocking, powerspikes from lightning hitting your house), it seems unlikely that the card would just...die...

Just a concept... hope it helps in some way.

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Holly



[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 25 January 2000).]

[MartinS]

Hi. You never said what machine you had, but I know that Office 97 Word installation can corrupt certain files from older (not that Old) DELL machines causing a Pre-Windows GPF as you describe. It's a while since I tackled this problem but I'll try and route out the appropriate info on which files it corrupts.

In the mean time boot into safe mode and run SFC (Windows System File Checker - a little know, but sometime useful MS util). It can be accessed by Start->Run and just typing SFC. It compares the files currently installed with what Windows thinks should be installed and attempts (and I use the term loosely) to fix the problems.

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Warning: Sigs may seriously damage your health...

[Gurm]

Turbo... no, it's not available for Win95 at all.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[J.O.N]

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions...

Hollyberri:
Memory is not a problem - 128Mb RAM, swap file set up but hardly ever in use. All the windows updates possible I installed very carefully in the right order, including USB and AGP support, and the motherboard AGP drivers as well (MS577 board - hardly the greatest but had no problems before). I used the Matrox uninstall program, so that's not the cause. No hardware was changed at all. No overclocking of any kind in any component. No lightning bolts as far as I remember.

MartinS: No, not a DELL machine.

Turbo: I didn't use Typical Install in Office - custom install, just putting Word 97 in. IE5 was already set up, and there was no attempt to install IE4. I've already tried to get rid of all display drivers in safe mode and 'normal' mode, no difference.


Just to make it clear, I had the Marvel set up just fine, PD5.41 installed no problems. Run Office set up, restart and bam, no more display (or basic display). My attempts to fix the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling the Marvel drivers do not work. The screen corruption and GPF suggest to me a hardware error. The basic that a basic display can be shown suggests not - unless different circuitry is used in the different display resolutions, and the 'basic' circuitry is okay. I know the fact that it went wrong after installing Word strongly suggests the two are related, but I'm starting to think it was just strange co-incidence. I've run all the Windows updates again, tried re-installing the PD drivers so that would replace any over-written or replaced file. Any more ideas????

J.O.N.