Someone from Matrox please help...

[Madman]

Hi,

I'm having a major problem with a technician that works at Matrox. His name is Daniel Lawrence, and he won't issue me a RMA. I'm having major problems with my G400 Max and he keeps on telling me that I have a IRQ conflict, which I already told him that I didn't. Here's what he said:

Dear Sir,
Please disregard the previous email, after looking over our previous email
correspondences there is nothing that can be done as long as you have the
IRQ conflict that we were dealing with previously. Also as I stated in our
last email a RMA can not be issued for a IRQ conflict as when the
replacement card is installed the same problem will result.

He's really getting to me and if this goes on I'm going to get a refund on the stupid card. Arrrrgh!!!

A VERY FRUSTRATED Matrox customer.

Mad (No pun intended)

[Vermillion]

Funny, I am having email sparring with the same guy and he has been nothing but short with me as well.

He keeps giving me the IRQ run around for a software DVD issue. Sigh.

I feel your pain my friend, but honestly, I wonder if they really care....

[motub]

Gentlemen (assuming you are).... I see that you are both new here, so may I take this opportunity to enlighten you about a couple of useful qualities of this user forum....

Notice this thread, "help me please" posted by.. well, whaddaya know, the same Vermillion who's posted here!

You see that Vermillion has been answered by a user named 'Haig'. Please take a moment to check Haig's profile.. OMG!!! 'Matrox Technical Support Manager'!!!!

Guess he's Daniel's supervisor, so naturally you might want to make sure he knows about your problems with his subordinate.

How you do that (make sure Haig sees your thread, be it about tech support personnel performance, or a technical question you want him to answer) is by putting "Haig" somewhere in the subject line of the thread.

But you can't edit the subject at this point, so I would suggest you email Ant (the moderator of this forum, the link to his email can be found in the top left corner of the main forum listing), and ask him to point Haig to this thread.

Good luck!

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Holly

[This message has been edited by motub (edited 20 October 1999).]

[Vermillion]

motub: Thank you very much for the heads up. I am new here and do not know all the ins and outs of this forum yet. I appologize to any and all persons whom I may have offended with some of my comments and will tread a little lighter from here on out to avoid stepping on any toes.

I'm just a little frustrated. I work in tech support myself, and I just desire the same quality support I offer my customers. I know from experience, not every problem can be fixed (nor every customer satisfied), but waiting over a week with no answer from anyone within the organization (until now)saddens me.

Sorry to be the disgruntle customer, I know that they can be a pain Other than my software issue, I love my card

[SCompRacer]

There are alot of issues with specific motherboards/combinations that are resolved by giving the G400 a seperate IRQ.

If the tech guy thinks you have an IRQ problem, remove the shared device and try it. You owe it to yourself to try it, and if you still have a problem the tech support person will probably give you an RMA. They end up with alot of cards that they cannot duplicate problems with, so they ask you to try different proven solutions before issuing an RMA.

The folks in this forum do their best to help, but they do hold people accountable for their action/posts, unlike other forums. Alot of us are very enthusiastic about our G400's, believing that it is one of the most revolutionary cards out at this time. Many of us had problems that we overcame, and sometimes when solutions are posted, the response is "no way, can't be that" and then any help will quickly disappear.

This card is worth any effort made to make it work in your system. Keep trying.

[This message has been edited by SCompRacer (edited 20 October 1999).]

[motub]

no sweat, Vermillion... everyone complains about the surly behavior of tech support staff, but few demand less unpleasant beahvior of tech support users... and on <u>that</u> scale, you are definitely on the 'good list' (not that other list.. )

Hope your problem is soon solved... likely, with the MURC on the case...!

Keep us posted...!

-----------------------
Holly

[This message has been edited by motub (edited 20 October 1999).]

[Madman]

ARrrrrghhhh....the thing is that I've TRIED EVERYTHING!!!!!! I even reloaded windows 5+ times, and just left the G400 Max in my system and it still crashed!!! With a clean boot!!!! Man...I'm so sick and tired or repeating myself.....you guys can't believe how frustrated I am....I'm about to sacrafice the card to the fire god....

Madman

[motub]

Well Madman, I know you're angry and frustrated, and I hate to do this... but you've gotta remember that you've been talking all this time to Matrox tech support, not to us...! So if you want our help, you're going to have to lay it all out again...!

ARrrrrghhhh....the thing is that I've TRIED EVERYTHING!!!!!!

What, <u>exactly</u>, comprises "everything"? Yes, I mean an exact, exhaustive list of every step you've taken already to try to solve this... your detailed system specs would be quite useful, too.

Unless you'd rather we just start making random suggestions to which you can reply "I did that already!!!!!"

Your choice...
-------------------------
Holly

[Madman]

Sorry about that last post, I was very frustrated. I do remember posting my specs on this forum but I could be wrong. Anyhow, here it is.

Asus P2B-F w/PIII 450MHz & 128MB PC-100RAM
G400 Max
Adaptec 2940UW SCSI Card
Sound Blaster Live Value
CL Voodoo2 12MB
CL Dxr2 DVD Decoder Card
Harmony 56.6k ISA Modem


My G400 is on IRQ 11 along with IRQ steering. The most recent thing that I tried was to disable the IRQ steering but everytime when I try to disable it, it comes back after I reboot. I also tried all version of the G400 drivers, and clean install, taking out everything but the G400, etc, etc. What is the usual cause of the computer to crash when the bus mastering is enabled? Why do I have to let the Matrox card have an IRQ all to itself? I know that I never had this problem before, and I just want to know why. I do know that for some strange reason when I set the AGP texture size to 256, it worked for a while but after that it still kept on crashing. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Madman

[SteveC]

Have you tried forcing AGP1X and making sure the G400 is inserted perfectly in its AGP slot?

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[JC]

Well Matrox need a good slapping... It took a month to get a working G400 Max and I've lost count of the number of emails that had no response.

24 hour response times? - I think not.

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System: P3@558,192MB Ram,Matrox G400Max,V2 SLI (Currently out), HOT 661 MoBo, 2940AU Scsi with 32xReader and 4x4x16 Writer, Jaz and Zip. And some heat.

[Jorden]

You don't have to remove PCI-steering, it'll come back anyway, plus having the G400 and PCI-steering on the same interrupt doesn't matter that a great deal.

What you could give us is the rest of the IRQ's, maybe something else is wrong somewhere?

The G400 is on a high enough IRQ, so that's not the fault. Do try forcing the card to AGPx1 as Steve said. On http://www.murc.ws you can find the registry-setting zipfile that forces that and more for you.

Your Asus P2BF has the latest BIOS, I imagine? Does your G400 have the latest BIOS?
Which version of DirectX do you use?

I could go on, but enough for now.
I take it your PC crashes upon booting? Have you checked your HDD for faults and virusses?

Jorden.

[DaStudent]

Hi Madman,

First of you can't disable IRQ steering as it's part of Windows implementation(?) of Plug & Play.

Here we go, Let the games (pain) begin...

So when you disable bus mastering the system doesn't crash? Ever?

Make sure in your system BIOS that you PNP OS installed set to disabled.. I know Windows is a PNP os.. But what this option does it will force the system on Boot to map the resources twice instead of once.. (for PNP os installed). In some cases it puts the device in the right "place" on the second pass. So to sum up, as I don't even understand the above, set it to DISABLE, it force the BIOS to map the resources twice, which is good. (also check that IRQ triggering is set to level and that you have assign IRQ to vga enabled).

Check with ASUS for latest BIOS and to see if there are any "issues" with the m/b (knowing your m/b revision is really important here).

Now, make sure you have the IRQ reserved for the slot the ISA Modem. You an does this in your system BIOS

That SCSI card.. Hmm what do you have connected to it? Have you tried moving the slot it is in? IS the chain terminated correctly (if required, ) Also maybe there is a BIOS(?)/Firmware updated for the SCSI card.

Definately try "shuffing" the slots on the PCI devices. As the way the IRQs are routed, you might stumble on the "magical" combination.

The SBLive, make sure you have the latest drivers for it.

As for the motherboard what is the FSB set too also, check to see if there is a divider for AGP bus, make sure you have your AGP bus as the standard value. You can play with it after the system is stable.

Also have you tried different memory?

As I believe was suggested try forcing AGP 1x with the REG hacks included on the MURC site.

Is it win 95, 98 or SE that you are running?

Can you try the card in another system?

Lastly, (not a fun option) pull everything out (ISA modem, SCSI - hope it's not for HD, Voodoos, SB) , format your HD, install windows with just the G400MAX in the system. Then add devices one at a time.

Best Regards & Good Luck.. We'll try to help you out!

- James

[Electric Amish]

Here's another idea... You might try removing the Voodoo2 and all it's drivers. The latest PD/TurboGL Drivers will not play nicely with a Voodoo in the system.

My 2 cents.

Paul

------------------
Retail Celeron 300a @ 464MHz
Abit BH6 v1.01(LN Bios)
128mb Generic PC-100 SDRAM
G400 32mb SH @ Fo=300MHz(5.30 Drivers)
Ovislink 10/100 Realtek NIC
E-Tech 56Kbps Modem
SB PCI128 Sound Card
Asus 40x CDROM
Western Digital Caviar 6.4GB (Win 98SE)
Western Digital Caviar 4.3GB (Red Hat 6.0)
17" Shamrock C708 .25 "Diamondtron" Monitor
(1) 120mm Panaflo Blow-hole
(2) 80mm Fans Card Cooler Style
(1) 80mm Fan @ case front

[Gurm]

Madman:

Well, you asked a couple of specific questions, so I'll try to answer. I swear I'm gonna write this FAQ myself, although someone might wanna volunteer to help me with it so it's not TOO sarcastic (Holly, you're automatically disqualified on the basis of ENHANCING my sarcasm).

My G400 is on IRQ 11 along with IRQ steering.

Good. That's fine the way it is.

The most recent thing that I tried was to disable the IRQ steering but everytime when I try to disable it, it comes back after I reboot.

Yes, that's a built-in thinger from Microsoft to route PCI interrupts. Ignore it unless you get more than one per IRQ.

I also tried all version of the G400 drivers, and clean install, taking out everything but the G400, etc, etc.

This is also good, but... you may have to reseat the card. Try taking it out, making sure the contacts are clean, making sure it sits 100% correctly in the slot with no flex. We've seen a LOT of people recently that have improperly seated cards, often through no fault of their own!

What is the usual cause of the computer to crash when the bus mastering is enabled?

Demons.

Really - demons!

Oh, ok... it could be any of a number of things. Generally it indicates a problem with resources or a driver conflict, or... well it could be ALMOST anything. Basically what happens is that when you turn on bus mastering the card starts really getting up to speed, which is of course when problems will manifest themselves. Many people will immediately say it's an IRQ thing, because until you turn on bus mastering your card doesn't need an IRQ! But that isn't the case in your system, so...

Why do I have to let the Matrox card have an IRQ all to itself?

You just do. It's a quirk of Matrox cards. Some people can get away with other cards on the same IRQ, most can't. It's part of the PCI spec that cards are supposed to be able to share IRQ's. But in reality many cards don't play nice. Some do - NICs usually play nice. But any card that has super-high bandwidth (video cards, SCSI cards, sound cards) is pretty much going to want its own IRQ when it's cranking. And a video card is ALWAYS on.

I know that I never had this problem before, and I just want to know why.

Define before. Before you put in the G400? What video card did you have before? New video cards do tend to be a bit touchy.

I do know that for some strange reason when I set the AGP texture size to 256, it worked for a while but after that it still kept on crashing.

We've seen this before as well. All that does is temporarily alleviate the underlying problem.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Not a problem, just keep it civil. Hehe.

- Gurm

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.