Oh! NO! Got my MAX and it doesn't do busmastering! Argh! Haig, BBCrew! Help!

[Slartibartfast]

JSD, in your case the problem is probably your retrograde K6 motherboard.

- Slarty

------------------
I used to be a guy named Gurm. I used to have a signature. But that's all gone now. Now, my name is Ash... and I am a slave.

[Buuri]

Do you have the latest BIOS for your mobo? If you are going with AGP2X, try regular. How about the latest AGP drivers for your mobo?
I thought G200s would work nowadays with regular AGP on every board..

B

[SteveC]

Slarty - What do you mean by 'retrograde' mainboard.

Also, JSD, could you check something for me? In you system properties, go to 'System Devices' then 'PCI Bus', then IRQ Steering and tell me if it's working or not. I've never seen one ov those TMC boards get that right.
I've found with these boards to re-set the BIOS to defaults, then install windows and don't ever touch the bios settings again (esp IRQ allocation). Weird I know, but it's SS7, what do you expect?

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

[Slartibartfast]

SteveC:

1. Tending or moving backward; having a backward course; contrary; as, a retrograde motion; -- opposed to progressive. ``Progressive and not retrograde.'' --Bacon.

It is most retrograde to our desire. --Shak.

2. Declining from a better to a worse state; as, a retrograde people; retrograde ideas, morals, etc. --Bacon.

My own:

Retrograde == Super Socket 7

Sorry, I don't mean to bash anyone's chipset choice, but let's face it - the SS7 boards are inherently unstable. The people who have BX chipsets and are experiencing massive corruption problems (on this and other boards I frequent) are few and far between.

Tim Sweeney (I know everyone loves him) refers to SS7 chipsets as "inherently broken". I personally just won't use one in Win98, they're that unstable... besides which a Celery+BX is cheaper anyway.

I blame Intel, truthfully. If they had published all the AGP spec details, maybe someone else could have built an OK AGP bridge chip. And that's most of the problem - the AGP on these SS7 boards is poor. A substantially larger percentage of these boards fail AGP 2x transfers and are therefore stepped down by the drivers than any other kind of board.

- Slarty

P.S. The best cure is to make sure you have the latest and greatest motherboard BIOS, and AGP Gart, and any other drivers available on the motherboard site, and on VIA or ALI's site.


------------------
I used to be a guy named Gurm. I used to have a signature. But that's all gone now. Now, my name is Ash... and I am a slave.

[JSD]

SteveC:

I checked the IRQ steering whilst at home on lunch, I haven't got a clue what it is but it does appear to be active and enabled! Sysinfo shows IRQ 11 shared between the IRQ holder for PCI steering and the graphics card. Mind you the same is true of IRQ 10 and the Adaptec card! Does this help any?

As for Bios and MB drivers, I have the latest bios (July 99) and recent VIA drivers.

To all those SS7 bashers - Leave it out! I've had no problems (until now) with mine, its definitely cheaper in the UK than a PII, even a celeron. Until Intel starts to be sensible in its pricing my money will continue to go into somebodys elses pockets!

Enough of that anyway.

As a side note if the hardware was suspect how comes I am not experiencing similar problems under NT4? If there was a full version of DirectX for NT I would ditch Win98 entirely.

James

[SteveC]

JSD - thanks, I was just checking cos I've built loads of machines with these boards and have had the PCI steering not work. The PC still worked fine though. Weird.

And Retrograde - yeah I agree with the general SS7 business, but I thought you meant something in particular with this model of board.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

[Slartibartfast]

JSD,

I said I wasn't bashing you or your board. Let me elaborate:

Under Windows NT, drivers are inherently more stable. They also push the limits of the hardware less. And programs never ever get to interact directly with the hardware. All of this contributes to perfectly functional NT machines going screwy under Win98.

As for price, I can get a Celeron 366 (O/C to 550 easily) for $90. A K62-400 is $100. A K63-400 is $165. The BE6 is $125 vs. the $115 for a similarly-equipped SS7 w/VIA (ALI isn't worth the silicon it's stamped on).

And that's at my local shop, nevermind if I looked around on the web.

I don't want to argue relative merits, I think the K6 is a wonderful chip that has been put on LOUSY boards.

- Slarty

------------------
I used to be a guy named Gurm. I used to have a signature. But that's all gone now. Now, my name is Ash... and I am a slave.

[Matrox]

Hi Scytale,

So far, no problems.

We did a fresh install of win98 and win98SE, used the default bios settings of the mobo, ran in 2x mode for 1.5 days and had no crashes.

We also enabled/disabled turbo mode without a hitch.

Used a PII 400 and a G400 32M dual head at regular clock speeds and O/Cing it.

After loading our drivers, it automatically went to 2x mode. We didn't install any patches or updates for the motherboard.

Can you give a list of what software you are using along with what driver versions you are using for your cards?

Thanks,

Haig

[JSD]

Slarty,

Those prices seem pretty reasonable. Looking through Insight they are pretty close (ex VAT of course), so maybe its worth a look. Unless anybody can suggest a really good stable SS7 board for a K6-3! Are there any advantages/disadvantages to using Socket 370 over slot 1?

Has anybody tried using Matrox cards an SS7 board with Win2k? I hear its particularly unpleasant with SBLive! cards so I've avoided it at home so far. I might be tempted if anybody has some good news...

James

[Slartibartfast]

JSD:

The only advantage to Socket370 is that it's getting harder to find Slot1 Celery chips, especially at local computer stores. The disadvantage to it, of course, is that you can never upgrade to a faster P2 or P3.

As far as Win2k on SS7, it's a gamble. If the board runs ok on NT4 I'd say it'll probably run ok on 2000. However, make sure your hardware (all of it) is on the compatibility list, otherwise you're SOL... NT4 drivers have a nasty tendency to NOT work on Windows Millenium (new name).

- Slarty

------------------
I used to be a guy named Gurm. I used to have a signature. But that's all gone now. Now, my name is Ash... and I am a slave.

[rylan]

Yeah, I'd be careful running a SBLive and Matrox with Win2K. A few friends of mine have the release candidate version of W2K and it has problems with the SBLive and the Matrox card at times. Oddly enough, the SS7 one is more stable than the PIII. Go Figure.

Anyway, since you asked about a good SS7 board, I've had very good results with my Epox MVP3G-M v1.0 (newest) and K6-III 450 with several differant video cards on W98.
From what other people I've asked said, this mb seems to be very stable, even for a SS7.
up to 133mhz fsb and 6.0x multiplier, plus a ton of voltage settings etc. Hope that helps.
-Ry

[Scytale]

Hi Haig. Thanks for testing. Too bad nothing showed up yet, but I guess that was to be expected. There are other guys around having no problems with their BH6+G400 combo. Count your blessings.

As you know I have tried various configurations, the most bare being with only my FirePort 40 SCSI and G400 MAX. Here you go:

Hardware

-Abit BH6 Rev 1.01
-Diamond FirePort 40 UWSCSI, P/N 23170000-004, BIOS 4.09.06 (included with 2.02 driverset)
-Matrox Millenium G400 MAX, Rev A, G4+MMDHA32GR, P/N 79095010671, BIOS 1.05 - 22

BIOS

-LN BIOS
-reset to default values
-disabled all integrated BH6 peripherals except for LPT
-SoftMenu 4x100, turbo disabled, AGP 2/3

OS and Software (in order of installation)

-Win98 4.10.1998 (first edition), clean install, no updates
-DirectX 6
-PowerDesk 5.13.020
-Matrox Tech Demo from G400 CD
-Expendable 1.0.0.1 from G400 CD

Drivers

-Diamond Multimedia FirePort PCI SCSI Host Adapter:
SYMC8XX.MPD 4.10.1998
IOS.VXD 4.10.1998

-Matrox Millenium G400 Dual Head - English:
BIOS 1.5 - 22
G400.DRV 4.11.01.1130
G400.VXD 4.11.01.1130
PowerDesk 5.13.020
DD/D3D 4.11.01.1130
DirectX 4.06.02.0436

That's it. With this configuration the lock ups and crashes would occur early in Expendable, before I would reach the first instance of bump mapped water. The Tech Demo would lock up just after the menu (first frame) with mouse and sound still active and display showing apparently random lines of data (including mouse cursor).
Something I haven't mentioned before, is that when using AGP2X+BM + 32bpp desktop, my system would crash immediately when painting the desktop background. Tried it 5 times, and it crashed each time.

Further more, there's a thread 'G400 problems' in the matrox usenet newsgroup discussing these lockups. We must have something in common, and you may want to look into it if you haven't done so already.

Well, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. I myself am waiting for a different SCSI card to get the FirePort out of the picture.

Thanks Haig.