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G400 + Montego sound card = corrupted bios?

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  • G400 + Montego sound card = corrupted bios?

    Hi folks, it's a pleasure to join you all...

    First, the configuration: G400 DH AGP, AMD K6-200, FIC VA-503+ motherboard, 64 megs RAM, Montego I PCI sound card, 3Com 905TX PCI network adapter, Win 98SE.

    My G400 conked out on me a few days ago. When the computer was turned on, all I would get is a blank screen and a one-long, two-short beep code from the bios. The screen would stay blank but the rest of the computer would start up ok, eg. keyboard lights would flash, hard drive would spin up, etc.

    The Matrox rep suggested that the video bios on the card had been corrupted, and emailed me a program that, when put on a boot disk, would re-flash the video bios. It worked! Yay, Matrox!

    Well, it worked, ONCE. After the Windows Desktop came up and the opening sound played, the computer would freeze hard-core. After resetting the computer, I would be back to the same beeeeep-beep-beep problem. Reflashing the video bios fixed the problem again, but ... well, it went in circles.

    When I installed the Montego sound card, I had troubles a-plenty until I installed the patches for the VA-503+ motherboard. I didn't use the 4-in-1 patch, as some components would crush Win98SE, so I used the individual ones for AGP and PCI IRQ resteering. It worked just great for a few weeks before it blew up suddenly as described above.

    Anyway, I took out the Montego and put in my old AWE32 ISA card... it works like a charm. Didn't need to patch a thing.

    So here's my question: is it possible that the AGP/PCI sound card issue on VA-503+ motherboards could have corrupted my G400's video BIOS, and has anybody else run into this, and has anybody fixed it?

    I'm running PD5.41.008, latest montego drivers too, and I flashed my MB bios to Award 1.15J37 several months ago with no problems.

    Yeesh.

    Thanks for any input, even the "wow that's weird" sort...
    Tatsujin
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