"Out of Scan Range" with DOS text: Huh?

[antdude]

Why is it every time I want to go to fullscreen from a windowed DOS prompt, my monitor tells me "Information: Out of Scan Range"? I have to hit ALT-ENTER to go back to a windowed box. I also have this when I restart Windows 98 (not a computer reboot; using the shift-restart in shut down menu). Even the shutdown screen (turn off computer) has it.

This problem occurs after a long period of usage (hours). It seems like my monitor or video card forgets the refresh rates. I don't know. I didn't have this problem with my old video card (Diamond Stealth64 3000; 4 MB VRAM).

I am already using the lastest version and using the lastest monitor INF file. I am at a loss. It is only a minor annoyance, but I would like to fix it. Anyone know what's the heck is going on?

My system configuration:
Award Modular BIOS (v4.51PG; Updated: 10/26/1999), Intel Pentium II 300 Mhz (DFI P2XBL motherboard revision A -- 440BX 100 Mhz bus tower, 128 MB of SDRAM (PC100), ATX Full Tower Case, 300W power supply, 2 ISA, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 Shared PCI/ISA Slot, 2 USB ports, 512K L2 cache, IBM P72 17" monitor (6556), Matrox Millenium G400 32 MB DualHead, Creative Labs 3D Blaster (PCI, Voodoo 2, 3Dfx, 12 MB, using 3Dfx's lastest reference drivers), Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum (not using LiveDrive), Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-M1212 6X/32X ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM drive, Plextor PleXWriter 4/2/20 CD-R/CD-RW PX-W4220T (SCSI), Diamond Fireport 40 PCI (SCSI-3), external USR 33600 Sportster Faxmodem (Model: 0413; Product Code: 000839-03), 6.4 GB Quantum Fireball EIDE (6.4EX-A) hard drive, 3.1 GB Western Digital Caviar EIDE hard drive, a 2-buttons Logitech mouse, 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100 Mb TX Ethernet NIC (3C905B-TX), Microsoft Windows 98 (disabled Active Desktop), RedHat Linux v5.1, two regular computer fans (CPU and normal) a 1 custom fan for 3Dfx card, and a HP DeskJet 560c printer. Running DirectX 7a and Yamaha Sondius XG SoftSynthesizer v1.0 for better MIDI in Windows 98.

[Chucky Cheese]

antdude

while not knowing the exact answer to your problem i can tell you how i would approach that.

first, and just to define it, it sounds like the "vga grabber" portion of the video driver cannot take control of the entire screen for some reason or other.

i notice from your system specs that you have a pass through cable...is it tight? are both cards seated properly? do you have a "degaussing" coil built-in to your monitor? if so can you manually initiate it, and then try it again? can you go to a full screen in safe mode?

just ideas and things to try...good luck!

chucky

[Zwisch]

Try the BIOS recovery from matrox... should help you.

[antdude]

Chucky Cheese:

The pass through cable should be tight since I have unplug/plug the cable many times since I bought the card from November 1999. I believe the monitor has "degaussing" coil built-in. I know when the monitor is turned on, the degauss kicks in. However, it didn't fix the problem.

Safe mode does work. To fix the problem, I must restart the whole computer (don't need to hit the reset button).

I will try the Matrox Bios recovery thingy. I don't see how that will work? What does it do?

Thanks!

[antdude]

Zwisch: Is this utility? ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/utils/biosutil/recover.zip

I don't see what it does (technical stuff). My card should be working fine.

Thanks.

[Kruzin]

antdude-
Loss of full-screen DOS is often a sign of a corrupt BIOS. We've seen it a hundred times. G200/400 seems to have a touchy bios. It's not uncommon for them to crap out.
Give the recovery utility a try...

[antdude]

Kruzin: Okay, here goes nothing. I hope my video card doesn't die on me during the fix. :I

I am downloading ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/utils/biosutil/recover.zip as I type this e-mail. I hope this fixes the problem.

Thanks!

[antdude]

Dang it! I tried the recovery utility to fix my BIOS. It succeeded, but the problem is still there. Ugh!

However, I did find something interesting. According to the IBM P72 monitor manual, the "Out of Scan Range" means the monitor cannot handle the current refresh rate. Here's what the trouble shooting page said:

* Check the video frequency range is within that specified for the monitor (Horinzontal: 30 - 85 kHz, Vertical: 50-150 Hz)
Refer to your computer's instruction manual to adjust the video frequency range.
* If you are using a video signal cable adapter, check that it is the correct one.


Is the video signal cable what my Voodoo2 is using (pass-through cable)? I don't see how it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't. I can play games on either Voodoo2 and Matrox G400 (there is a program to pick which card to use).

Now, how do I fiddle with the refresh rate for DOS text mode? Is there a specific resolution mode for it? All the modes are for graphics, not text mode.

I am at a loss now again. Thank you in advance for replies.

[antdude]

Is 004 the lastest hardware version? I checked it via control panel's system device manager.

Thanks!

[Maggi]

Hi Antdude,

did you possibly set your G400 Bios to run in DOS-to-TV mode ?

Most VGA monitors have problems in using those frequencies/resolutions ...
My CTX VL710T denies to show to bios bootup when the RAM is counted, but all other DOS modes work fine in TV mode.

Launch UBiosWin.exe and have a look.


------------------
Cheers,
Maggi

Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

[antdude]

Maggi: I just found that file in my HDD, and have never seen it before. I doubt I have run it before since I never seen and fiddled with it. I just ran it and see:]

Graphics card info:
Graphics card model: Matrox G400 AGP
Matrox BIOS version: 1.5 - 22
DOS TV output: No TV Output

Change BIOS of Matrox Graphic card:
-Update Matrox BIOS
-Change DOS TV output setting
.
.
.

Nothing is checked since I never used this program before.

My BIOS bootup is fine. In fact when I have the problem and I go reboot my computer, I do see the DOS text. I guess the reboot resets the Matrox card.

[This message has been edited by antdude (edited 13 March 2000).]