Is my Marvel G200 dying?

[jeepman]

Under W2K or under W98 with the latest drivers, my system will eventually hang. I can make it happen quicker if I try and play any kind of video file or use the TV function. The screen starts to get green lines going up and down, and then the fonts corrupt beyond recognition.

I eventually end up up with an unviewable image, and have to do ALT F4's to close the apps if I can, or do a reset.

If I don't play a video file or watch TV, I can surf for up to 20 minutes or so, but eventually I lock up and have to reset. This all started after putting the PCI Marvel G200 back in. By the way, no IRQ conflicts, so I am baffled.

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ASUS A7V, 256MB Infineon PC133, "Copper" Athlon 900@1105MHz, GlobalWin FOP38 with Delta 7000 RPM 38CFM fan. PCI Marvel G200 TV, 3COM 905C NIC, Adaptec 2940UW Ultra-Wide SCSI, SBLive PCI 1024. Segate Medalist PRO 9.1GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Seagate Barracuda 4.3GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Maxtor 20.4GB ATA66 7200RPM 2MB Cache, 8GB tape b/u, Sony IDE Spressa 8x/4x/32x CDROM RW, RAID 0 stripe set on hacked Promise ATA100 with dual Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30GB ATA66 drives.

[This message has been edited by jeepman (edited 01 February 2001).]

[jeepman]

I have been running the original drivers off the CD and the original vid tools as well for about 3 hours now. All seems well at least under W98.

I will post any remaining questions on the Matrox Forum since it appears the G400 Marvel and G200 Marvel drivers are truly buggy as proved by my experience, and many others on the Matrox Forum Boards.

Man, computers are just never easy are they?

[Dr Mordrid]

Buggy? Not here.

I have four Marvel G400's and two Marvel G200's on my network and they are installed on a wide variety of hardware (Asus, Abit, Soyo; PIII, PII, Celeron-1 and II etc).

The only real problems I have is a known issue with the 1.54 video tools having broken YUY2 support. Using 1.52 fixes that.

The Win2K drivers are betas, which presumes they are buggy. These are due for full versions in a couple of months.

Otherwise no problems.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 02 February 2001).]

[jeepman]

Dr. Morbid,

That is good to hear. I was surprised that I was even having any issues because two years ago when it was my main card, I didn't really have any problems.

One question, are any of your systems VIA based Athlon systems?

I ask because that does appear to be a source of some problems, and on the Matrox forum, there is a version of the W98 drivers that are not considered compatible with Via based systems. I just can't remember the drivers rev number right now.

Anyways, I will stick with what I have for now, because I did my original editing with the drivers from the CD, and I received satisfactory quality back out to tape.

[jeepman]

I have kind of solved my problem, I had to turn off bus-mastering in the Desktop Manager Option's section. My system takes a performance hit, but at least it does not crash!

Now I just need to figure out how to re-enable bus mastering.

[Dr Mordrid]

Nope. No VIA based systems here. All 440bx, mostly Asus P3B-F but a smattering of Abit BH6 and a couple others.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Have been using a G-200 for some time now, without problems, using W98SE.

Last week, I wanted to do a MJPEG capture session, switched the computer on, it booted fine, everything OK. Clicked on the MSPro capture icon: total crash requiring reboot. I said a mighty Anglo-Saxon four-letter word under my breath. Then tried the Matrox VCR: same result, same reaction. Re-installed the video tools, same result, same reaction. Re-installed the Matrox Power Desk, same result, same reaction. Nothing daunted, as a last resort before a total re-install, I tried re-installing W98SE on top of the existing one (i.e. using the same registry), et voilà, it worked!

Moral of the story, invisible things can go wrong with Windows, even if everything else works OK. Before blaming the G-200 or anything else, re-install everything germane to the app, including the OS (I had started to fear a G-200 breakdown )

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Brian (the terrible)

PS Before the W2000 guys start cheering that it would never happen on their OS, think again. There are more catalogued and uncured bugs in it than in W98SE.

[This message has been edited by Brian Ellis (edited 06 February 2001).]

[Michel Carleer]

I do agree with Brian. First let me say that I am using W2K, and that my PC is equipped with two removable hard disks (I have to switch OS'es to test the programs I write). Two weeks ago, I switched once again the HD's. And, unfortunately, my D: drive was not properly connected. W2K booted OK and then announced that it had found new hardware and had installed it. Net result after reboot: unformatted HD, do you want to format it now? Everything on D: lost!
Why, oh why didn't W2K ask me before "installing" the new hardware?
Unfortunately, W2K is full of such automatic procedures, and if they are given the slightest chance, they WILL go wrong.
Michka