Appeared to have fixed my Abit/G400 Max lockup problem

[Overlode]

Hmm... I think I may have tempted fate a little with my last post! My G400 worked for hours with no lockups, but half an hour after screwing my case lid back on - the lock ups were back!

I have a nasty suspicion that my old cheap'n'nasty case has a ventilation problem, judging by the memory errors that the BIOS reported after rebooting, which were solved by simply turning the machine off, leaving it for a bit, and then turning it on again...

Oh well, I'm nearly there...

[Rob M.]

Done my own tests with my max today. Thought I got rid of it yesterday, everything was working ok, but today quake3 was crashing after about 10 seconds of playing. AGP 1x solved that problem again. I am gonna try to get one of those cards with the plastic fans (at the very least it'll be quieter)

[WayneHu]

I just found the true problem which causes AGP 2x hang up on my P3B-F. The main problem is RAM's timing. I have to set CAS 3 of my RAM to make AGP 2x stable with my G400...
(Celeron 300P@558, P3B-F, 128 MB DIMM modules * 2 ...)

Maybe it is the same problem with my previous MB, P2B-F. But the weird thing is that my Millennium G200 doesn't have such problem...
(PII-266@400, P2B-F, 128 MB * 2 , CAS 2, AGP Bus=66MHz... AGP2x -> G200 ok! G400 Failed!)

My conclusion is that G400's timing is much more restricted... And the quality of my RAM is not good enough. (Just my guess.. it doesn't mean the actual fact...)

[Zypher]

Run your motherboards on a piece of cardboard. Your ATX ps cable better be long though Almost all modern (BX) boards have the emf/emi crap built in, you might be violating the FCC Class B but only if your nieghbor is a ham radio nerd will anyone find out. Only some mobo manuals tell you its safe to operate on cardboard (i.e. no shielding) but they all can.

Then ALL of your cards can be seated, and there will be NO ground, contact or cooling problems. (use floor fan if you need to)

I had an old problem with a LX board and a modem...if *finally* worked after taking it out of the case. It was touching *barely* ONE PIN to the case. That case was $25. My last one was $150. It has 10 5.25" bays, 4 wheels, a 3-digit led, *9* leds you can connect however you like, and has never drawn any blood. Plus it survived a 3 foot drop from my car trunk to the pavement. With everything inside

Its an extreme method, for extreme problems.

Any questions?

(PS - the LX wasn't an abit)

[ALBPM]

COOL!!! Maybe next week Haig can track down some more specific reasons for the poor fit in the ABIT mobos.

Hey Whisper, Alfie and SteveC... I read your posts and that's what got me looking into the "Fit problem" in more detail

Thanks guys we are a Hell of a team!!!

Paul

[Whisper]

Glad to be of service.

Also glad somebody took notice and appreciated it.

[MidiSax]

Thought I'd better say something. I have a p3 450 at 600, 256meg pc133 ram,abit bx6 rev.2 mb, G400 that was supposed to be a max it looks like, diamond fireport40scsipci,2 quantum viking1 and 1 viking 2 scsi hd's, echo layla and gina pro audio cards, awe32,3com bigpicture video capture pci, and USB intellimouse,sidewinder precision pro and 3com net adapter on an integra 4 port USB hub. wired to adsl.

AGP is at 2x with the reg hack, turbogl works well in q3test, I've been winning easily in high quality mode and it very smooth.

Descent 3 is very impressive. Ships look great.

Havent gotten around to expendable yet.

At one point I was having lockups in q3test, when i removed my voodoo2 card to install turbogl i loosened the screw enough and reseated the card. The voodoo2 replaced the voodoo1 in my 300A@450 so now both machines can game pretty well. Since installing turbogl and also doing the agp2x hack I've not locked up at all.

This forum is damn impressive.

[bcronin]

Haig, are the boards mfg'd in Ireland different from the boards mfg'd in Canada in any way such that the physical problems that seem to be occurring with Abit mobo's would be more likely to happen with a Canadian board than an Irish one?

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Cheers,
BC

[bcronin]

Hoo brother. No way am I ever taking that Max out if its slot again (just to see if the lockups come back, yeah right ;-).

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Cheers,
BC

[Scytale]

Hi guys. An update, because today I received my replacement card, an 'Irish' MAX, with plastic bladed fan and such.

At this time the new card has been doing AGP2X+BM for hours (at 124MHz FSB, 83MHz AGP, x2). Tempting fate, I reseated the card a few times, but so far no problems...

The dimensions and proportions of the two cards are identical. However, the components are not - SGRAM, resistors, transistors... there are quite a number of differences to be found.

Further more, the new card may be a MAX, but it's less of a MAX than my older MAX. When trying to overclock it, I found that this new card is not nearly as overclockable as my older card... probably due to the fact that the heatsink that came with the new card is applied without thermal compound. Instead some kind of metalic thermal sticker is used, sticking only to the heatsink.

So far for my findings. I'll be doing some more testing. Burn baby burn.

[dulux]

All of the AGP problems that occur are well known to be physical problems.

I have come from the distribution channel in the UK. Intel in the begining said it was a design FEATURE that the contacts were very limited in play.

So they would blame the mb manufacturers who would blame the card people who would blame the case people which resulted in the RMA's from hell.

This has happened since the start of AGP so nothing new here.

Just thought I'd tell you!

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Believe me Don't believe me no matter
Believe Bill Gates on the other hand.......

[bcronin]

Scytale, did you do anything special when putting the Irish Max in (like bending the bracket, etc.) or did you just plug it right in just like your old one? I ask because I got my replacement Irish Max before this business of the physical problems was brought up and I did *not* do anything special when putting it in and it worked first time, with zero lockups in almost two weeks now. So, I am skeptical that the physical explanation holds water. There must be some other difference between the Canadian and Irish boards that makes a difference. I don't think I've seen anyone with an Irish board having lockup problems.

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Cheers,
BC

[3rdStone]

I have an Irish card with a two wire fan, and I had the lockups with agp 2x. For me the problem seems to have had to do with the position of the card in the agp slot. I used ALBPM's bending trick, and also found that if I made sure that the card was angled down as far as it would go (ie pushed the mounting bracket down as far as it would go) I would get no lockups. I say magic words and sprinkle pixie dust each time I start up a 3d game. I'm waiting on a new max which I ordered just before ALBPM posted his solution, so I'll see if the new card is less finicky.

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'scuse me while I kiss the sky

[JasonC]

Hello, I am new to this board because I have just purchased a G400 MAX recently. I have been experiencing random lockups in many 3d games and sometimes with winamp. I have tried all of the regestry tricks, bios settings, I reinstalled drivers and even took off the metal part off the video card and jammed it all the way in, but nothing works. And guess what? I also have the Irish Version with the three wire fan. What can I do now? I do not want to go through the trouble of replacing the card for another one that does the same thing. I am going to try reinserting the card a couple more times. If you guys can think of anything else please tell me.

One sad G400 owner

[Rags]

What are your system specs?

Rags