Is it true that there are fake G400's going around?

[Kookstick]

I was wondering because I saw somewhere else they were talking about and it got me thinking. I don't get any info on bootup about my card, bios ect. When I use G4set it says g400 but not too much info. I bought mine from a fairly reliable source, OEM G400 dualhead. Can anyone answer this please- Thanks

[JamesA]

I don't know if there are any fake G400, but I do know that my MAX doesn't report anything either during bootup.

I think your best bet is to check if the driver reports the right chip in the

<nobr>Display Properties -&gt; Settings -&gt; Advanced -&gt; Information</nobr>


Good luck!

JamesA.


------------------
System Hardware:
www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~ang/demerzel.html

[cswan]

The Matrox boot screens (screen before the initial BIOS screen) have always been fast. Old my old Millenium I could just barely catch it, but I've never seen it on my G200 card (perhaps there isn't one?)

Contrast that to crappy cards, like my old #9 Imagine, or stinkballs like Trident cards, and they have a boot screen that lingers for 5-6 seconds [I can only assume that's because they think of it as free advertising, but Matrox has always thought more along the lines of "Why make users sit and wait?"]

[Genom]

Actually, the reason you dont see that power on scereen anymore isnt cause it's fast. it's cause it isnt there anymore, as per Microsofts Instant ON standard for hardware. Microsoft really started getting bitchy about it when win98 came out, practically saying that unless people adhered to some stuff they wanted, they would not give out WHQL certification for that hardware.

[Sprocket]

What? But I liked seeing the "Matrox Power Graphics Accelerator" on my old Mystique 220 at bootup - it made me feel, umm, complete.

[Nuno]

Can anyone confirm this? I was pretty sure the message was disabled by default in the card bios, and it could be enabled.

[Zwisch]

The message is indeed not there on boot up...

[rubank]

Nuno,

you´re right, it´s disabled in bios (pins). If it´s enabled it´s so fast you can´t read it anyway.

rubank

[Nuno]

Thanks, Rubank, I was pretty sure about that. Well, anything that speeds up the bootup, no matter the way, is always welcome

[SCompRacer1]

My old Permedia 2 chip BIOS on the Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro would appear for a couple of seconds, then blank screen and then MB BIOS post.

Added about 7-10 seconds, and I don't miss it at all.

[LrngToFly]

Didn't I read somewhere that someone had stolen some G400 chips from the fab (Mitusbishi? it was some "M" company) that makes Matrox's chips and built their own cards?

Can't remember where I read this... I thought they were only showing up in Asia. I can't imagine there were too many...

[Nuno]

As a matter of fact, all the Gx00 cards don´t display a message at bootup because it´s disabled in the bios by default. If one edit the pins in the bios would show up the message, but why anyone would want to do that? My G200, as expected, doesn´t show any message too at bootup. But my Millenium I did.

And as for those fake cards, I don´t think they ever existed. Maybe some early shipment from a early revision from nec, but these were for sure matrox cards. And for what I recall, these were all singlehead, and all sold in the oriental market (Hong-Kong I guess) so you should be very safe in that matter.

[Nuno]

NEC makes matrox chips not Mitsubishi. But yes, the story was something like that. Nothing to worry, IMHO.

[Kruzin]

The whole idea is crazy.
Building "fake" G400 boards based on nothing but stolen chips is ridiculous. It would take years to reverse engineer it, design a multilayer PCB, and produce them. That rumor was goofy when it first came out, and it's goofy now.

The rumor started because some OEM models where released in Hong Kong before they where supposed to be. Some moron decided to post a story about "fake" cards on his web site when he saw the cards where out before they where due. It was an early shippment, nothing else.