Appeared to have fixed my Abit/G400 Max lockup problem

[blondeguy]

Well, I have an Abit BE6 and when I first got my G400 Max (Its the canadian version, 2 wire metal fan) It would lock up within a minute of being in windows. The only fix to this at the time was to force AGP 1X via the reg hack.

Well, Someone on the board suggested taking the G400 out and reinserting. I gave that a try, actually I inserted and removed about 5 times in a row. After booting back up and using the reg hack to go back to AGP 2X there are no more lockups! It appears to be much more stable than before. Before I was getting some lockups and crashes every once in a while with UT and now I havent had any crashes after some extensive UT online play.

I'm pretty happy and thought I'd share if anyone really wants to get there G400 max to run like it was supposed to.

[ALBPM]

I had a similar problem when I first put my MAX in a BX6 rev2 motherboard. I noticed that there is not much room between the edge of the motherboard and the side of the case where the slotcover bracket on the card fits, especially on the ABIT boards that I've used.
A simple trick that I use is to slightly bend the bracket so it fits better and doesn't hang up when inserting any PCI or AGP card.


Paul

[cjolley]

Also try wiping the AGP contacts a few times with a dry paper towel before inserting the card to slightly abraid the surface of the contacts.
chuck

I thought that problem was sounding mechanical.



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ABit BH6 w/ Celery 333@500, 128mb gh@cas2, 10gb IBM@7200, SB Live Value@44kh, noname CDRom@40x, Mitsumi CDRW@2x2x8, Zoom@56k, Princeton EO75@1024x768x32x85hz, USB mouse,Matrox G400 MAX!!!!

[ALBPM]

Looks like we're on to something here guys.

I know that Haig has thoroughly checked out RMA'd cards and suspect ABIT motherboards over the past few weeks and can't reproduce the problems.
So, just maybe it is a mechanical problem (card not fitting properly) causing the grounding problems, which result in lockups.
It could be related to a combination of the type of Case used and ABIT mobo.

Paul

[Haig]

Like I said on the other thread. Both cards (Metal and plastic bladed fans) are identical down to componenet level. With the exception of the plastic bladed fans needing 30ma less current, it can't be our card or else all the RMA'd boards, or at least one of them would have shown the lock ups in house.

We have 3 Abit mobos and a clients' mobo with a bunch of RMA'd Max's. Not one combination is locking up even with SCSI cards and SCSI devices and the live card all hooked up.

If this is the solution, then the only explanation I can think of for the clients who got a replacement board and all is ok is that maybe, they just pushed in our card further into the slot.

For the hell of it, I emailed Abit about this problem a while back. This is the response I got from a techie Harry Yen:

"Did you ever try a different chip of memory? It is possible that the memory is not compatible with our motherboards and cause the system to lock up all the time."

Haig

[xortam]

Haig, I received a replacement G400 Max from Matrox today that fixed my lock up problems. I have a SCSI setup and was pursuing some ASPI issues (real-mode ASPI drivers seemed to exasperate the problem). I have this card installed on an ASUS P2B-S motherboard. The defective card is manufactured in Canada with a two wire metal fin fan and the working replacement is from Ireland with the three wire plastic fin fan. I'll wait a couple of days to be sure before I return the defective card. Interested in the RMA#?

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• ASUS P2B-S, PIII 450MHz, Award ACPI BIOS v1010, 128 MB RAM
• MYLEX FlashPoint RAID+ (BIOS v2.02N) running RAID 0 on two 9 GB IBM DDRS 39130D Disks
• Diamond MX300 sound card
• Matrox Millennium G400 Max Dual Head - English
• NEC 5FG monitor
• YAMAHA CRW4416S and NEC Multispin 3x CDs
• 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX NIC
• US Robotics 56K Voice FaxModem Pro
• Trying out Pioneer DVD-303S SCSI (but no S/PDIF ... waaahhh!!!)
• Note--All SCSI devices (except disk drives on RAID) are connected to onboard AIC7890 U2W SCSI
• Mainly running Win98 v4.10.1998

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 10-08-1999).]

[Haig]

Sure, I'll take your RMA # and your client ID # if you have one.

Thanks,

Haig

[This message has been edited by Haig (edited 10-08-1999).]

[3rdStone]

In an attempt to clear up my agp2x freezes, I replaced my Abit BH6 with an Asus P3B-F. The freezes persisted, but I did notice that if I didn't tighten the screw which secures the Matrox card that I'd see fewer lockups. When placing the Matrox card into the AGP slot I noticed that the pins did not line up precisely with the slot, requiring some degree of force to get the card in though it did seem to go all the way in. When I made the adjustments described by Paul, there was better alignment. I have been able to play Halflife and QuakeII at AGP2x. I got one lockup in Quake2, but that was while trying to play the game in a window while running the Asus monitoring utility. CAD got me out of that one-I didn't have to reset the box. Heavy Gear II still freezes when lightening flashes. Is that a driver issue rather than a mechanical issue?




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'scuse me while I kiss the sky

[paulcs]

"... and *gently* insert the card into the slot."

Indeed.

I doubt I've ever *gently* inserted an AGP card into a slot. I might regret it one day, but I don't trust the darn things. I push really hard. I've heard too many horror stories.

And I've had some ISA boards that would never have gotten into the slot if I didn't force them.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Star F.]

If you cannot use a hammer
use vaseline

... that's what my plumber says.

[Scytale]

I wiggled, bended, cleaned, seated and reseated like there was no tomorrow, but lock ups is what I get.

Anyway, I'll be receiving a replacement for my MAX today. It's hard to seat a card with fingers crossed, but I'm going to try anyway.

[ALBPM]

Here is a very crude drawing of what might be going on with the cards not fitting properly.


Paul

[cjolley]

Paul,
That's your idea of crude? Very Nice!
How about one showing the problem with side-to-side angle causing some members of the top row of contacts losing contact in the AGP slot.
(I trust I make myself obscure )

chuck


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ABit BH6 w/ Celery 333@500, 128mb gh@cas2, 10gb IBM@7200, SB Live Value@44kh, noname CDRom@40x, Mitsumi CDRW@2x2x8, Zoom@56k, Princeton EO75@1024x768x32x85hz, USB mouse,Matrox G400 MAX!!!!

[Rob M.]

When I originally tried my MAX in the BX6R2 I assembled the thing without a case at all, I had the motherboard placed on its box and simply plugged in the video card. Same crash. Same crash when I did it the same with the BH6. I'll play around with my video card seating, but I've seen AGP seating problem before (used that 'bend the backplate' trick a lotta times) and this doesn't seem to be it, I am sure my card is seated squarely and fully inside the slot.

(I really seem to be just shooting down every suggestion here, but I really have tried everything I can, and I don't believe its something any end-user can fix)

[Overlode]

I'd just like to say a cautious (I still need to do lots more testing) but heartfelt "Thank you!" to ALBPM! I've been experiencing loads of frustrating lock-ups, reboots etc. and despite previous glimmers of hope after much registry/BIOS hacking, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I may have to return my new G400.. After seeing a post regarding new VIA chipset drivers, I installed the new bus-mastering driver, but the real breakthrough occurred after I just happened to see ALBPM's post about G400's not being seated correctly. I re-opened my case, noticed that the card wasn't quite in correctly (exactly as in your diagram) pulled out the card, bent the front plate around a bit and put it back in nice and firmly... The result - no more lockups! I've played Q3Test without any drop-outs/freezes and I'm very happy! I'm just crossing my fingers now in the hope that this is permanent...!