Haig : correct PS specs for abit-RRG combo please

[Boul]

I recently bought a g400dh and a RR-G card and while the g400 works great, the RR-G is not working at all. I got win98 to recognize it once, and even then I did not get an image.

From what I understand, my abit BP6 and power supply might not produce enough juice to activate the RR-G. My power supply is a Aopen 300W that came in a AX08 full tower. I would like you to post the full specs for the power supplies you used to test the abit-RRG combo, as I hear you had the card working without a hitch.

Would like to be sure I do not have a defective card...

Could you also list the latest drivers I should be using?

Thanks


[This message has been edited by Boul (edited 26 December 1999).]

[This_Idiot]

Boul,

Check out the site FAQs. You can find these at http://idiots-guide.matroxusers.com and then follow the "tips & tricks" from the main menu.

You'll find that your PS should be providing 0.5amps at both -5v and -12v rails.

[Boul]

My power supply is a Aopen 300W, with the following specs:
3.3V = 14A
+5Vsb = 0.85A
+5V = 30A
-5V = 0.3A
+12V = 12 A
-12 V = 1A

I paid alot for the full tower HX08 case, it would really be a pain to change an otherwise fine power supply...

So its the 0.3 amps at -5V thats killing my RR-G?

[This_Idiot]

Well I can't say that it is definitely the problem, but it doesn't fit in with the information that Matrox supplied.

I'd try to borrow a suitable PS before spending the cash, in case this isn't the problem.

[coolfish]

you might wanna try this......... move your RR-G to a PCI slot as far away as possible from your G400 (AGP slot). If it's poor quality capacitors that are causing the problem (interfence and whatnot) then hopefully the distance will help. Is that what helped me get my RR-G to work? Maybe, or maybe it was that goat I sacrificed.

(note that no actual goats were hurt in the posting of this message).

as an update: my RRG tv tuner stopped working entirely shortly after posting these messages originally. It's driving me nuts. I'm waiting for a friend of mine to bring home a better power supply unit and try it out with that. What I honestly don't understand though is why None of the matrox tech people even had the blarniest idea about the power supply and Abit boards not feeding clean power to the PCI slots....


[This message has been edited by coolfish (edited 30 December 1999).]

[Boul]

I guess the abit-poer supply_RR-G problems are quite limited to this hardware configuration. I have seen people with msi and intel with intermittent trouble, but a reboot seems to fix things for them.

I have not seen any posters with an asus board, or an epox board, which is a testimony to their stability (at least for the voltages)

[Design238]

Hello Boul,

you're wrong. I've got an ASUS P2BS motherboard and problems with my G200+RRG. TV tuner not detected and audio noises at audio out.
There were many posts about this behavior in the past and it seems to be a power supply problem. I've tried many power supply with the correct voltages but nothing to do, always the same thing.

I've got this card for 2 months now and it only run the first day !!! WHAT TO DO, RMA ?

Cheers

Design238, France

[TSP]

I to have a aopen HX08 case and I was forced to change the powersupply to a "seventeam st-301hr" to get my RR-G working.

[Boul]

So I guess matrox has a problem...

They must get a move on and get the RR-G working with popular power supplies. (I know I am not changing mine...)

[David]

Hi,

I've heard this same power supply problem so many times that I feel compelled to say a few words about it. (Quick, RUN!)

I'm not usually very critical about things, but this particular issue does tend to rub me the wrong way a little.

Matrox claim that their card adheres to all PCI specs and that the problem is the power supply/motherboard combination. In other words, "Not our problem." That is all well and good, but I must have had in excess of 50 different PCI cards in my system and the only one that has ever had a "power" problem is the RR-G. Common sense tells me that this is caused by the RR-G being too fragile in some way. This is something that Matrox should fix.

The fact that there is a problem does not bother me. I don't expect every card ever manufactured to work flawlessly in every board. I'm a realist and this is an unfair expectation.

What I do expect is for Matrox to agressively identify and fix the problem for all new RR-Gs that they manufacture. I also expect them to document the problem on their web site in a tech support section where the information should be EASY to find. A list of recommended power supplies would not go astray. Microsoft software may be full of bugs, but if you have a problem that they know about you can be sure to find a technical document about it in the Knowledge Base.

Insead of these solutions being implemented we have Matrox customers posting every second week on this board with the same problem. This is NOT an uncommon problem. People all over the world are experiencing it.

I remember reading about this problem something like 2 years ago. Brand new RR-Gs seem to still have the same problem. This really should have been fixed by now.

When I had this problem I first went through the online Matrox email support. Noone there had anything to offer. Every single person who answers those emails should KNOW about this problem. As soon as they get a message with the words "Abit", "TV tuner", "noise" and "not detected" in them the probable cause should be immediately obvious. The same goes for the phone support people.

I ended up finding these forums (thank God for MURC) and getting an answer pretty quickly. I went through a couple of power supplies and eventually got it working. It took me many hours, a lot of fiddling and a non-trivial amount of money to get my RR-G working. The whole process took several months. I hate to think what non-technical people go through!

This is not an attack on anyone in particular (the Matrox tech support guys on this forum are invaluable and it is fantastic that they are here), it's more an attack on the Matrox business procedures that allows a problem like this to continue for so long.

The fact that there is no information about this on the Matrox site really is terrible.

Enough rambling...

...David <optic@iname.com>