BIG G400 Problems

[RuffRyder1672]

I just got a g400, switched from a Viper II. When the G400 is in my machine I noticed 2 very strange things during startup:

My P2 350 is OVERCLOCKED?!? to 361

& there is a message that flashes that says, SPD not found at DIMM's 1 2 3

There are only two dimms in the machine a 96 in slot 1 and a 32 in slot 2. The motherboard and g400 are both at the latest bios. My motherboard is a biostar m6tba, and it is based on 440bx.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Sisyfos]

I wonder where you got that 96 MB DIMM????

[Kruzin]

I doubt any of these have anything to do with your G400. A video card does not affect your processor speed or RAM. General Hardware issues (IE: not related to a Matrox product) go into the General Hardware forum. That is where you will find this thread now...

361MHz is a FSB of 103MHz. Somewhere along the line you probably set jumpers to run at 103, or selected a "Turbo" mode, if you have CPU clocking options in your BIOS. It is impossible for a video card to change your FSB this way.

And for the RAM....do these sticks have SPD? Probably not, and this why POST is reporting that. It's probably always been this way, and just went un-noticed until now. Nothing to worry about AFAIK...

[merchant2112]

i think you got a bad stick o memory (i could be wrong, but) i have never heard of a 96 meg ram stick

standard memory is 4meg 8meg 16 meg 32 meg 64 meg 128meg 256 meg ect..... it dubbles as they add chips ...... what you may have is a 128 bar with a frye chip, and not all memory has a spd chip.....

has anyone else heard of a 96 meg chip??

i would make sure that when you installed your new card that you did not knock anything else loose.....

just my 2cents

[Greebe]

I think Merchant is right... I've seen this happen to my Athlon system after repeatedly swapping out cpu's.

[RuffRyder1672]

Yep it is 96MB, and it has always been that way. I added 32MB, so 2 of the 3 slots are taken up, for a total of 128MB. The computer is a pionex- dirty dirty generic. I have replaced a lot of the components with upper end stuff. But this is important, I did not change anything- knock anything loose because when I put my viper II back into it, all of the problems go away. That is what makes me possitive that it has got to be the g400. I will try one stick or the other and see if that works. But I really am clueless as to why my cpu gets overclocked only when the g400 is in it.

One final question- Is there supposed to be a video card startup screen for the g400? I know quite a few cards that have a bootup screen on the first screen right when you boot. The reason I ask this is because I am not getting a bootup screen for the g400 like I did with my viper II.

Thanks

[Sisyfos]

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't such a thing as a 96 MB DIMM.
If it has always reported 96, then it has always been faulty.

Try disabling the 'Spread Spectrum whatyamacallit' and see if that corrects the CPU frequency.

The G400 doesn't display it's bios info at boot.

[Gurm]

There was another guy with this same problem - the CPU speed being affected by the G400. And it was MOST DEFINITELY the spread spectrum or the ABIT "turbo" option, both of which he turned off.

Sounds like you are having the classic "have to reset the bios options when I switch AGP cards" syndrome.

And yes, your RAM is badly broken. I'm surprised that it works. There is absolutely no such thing as a 96MB DIMM. And yes, I'm 100% positive. RAM _has_ to be a power of 2. i.e. 2^2=4, 2^3=8, 2^7=64, 2^8=128.

- Gurm

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

[tufka dZeus]

maybe it's a 128MB DIMM with 4x32MB RAM chips on it, and one of them is broken

[RuffRyder1672]

Alright, I have different ram in the machine now (64, 32, 32) but that didn't solve the problem. Still the SPD error. And then for the spread spectrum and turbo option, the problem is that they aren't in my bios, how should i turn them off???

[Gurm]

RuffRyder:

Step 1: Update your MB bios to the latest revision.

Step 2: Update your G400 bios to the latest revision.

Step 3: Make sure all dip switches, jumpers, and software CPU settings are correct for your CPU and bus speeds.

Step 4: Make sure nothing is in the slot next to the G400. Make sure nothing shares IRQ's with the G400.

Step 5: Put in ONE known good RAM chip.

Step 6: Only put in the G400 (take out all other cards).

Step 7: Report results.

- Gurm

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