g400 for HP

[dondrd]

I happened to get a hold of a 16 mb G400 from a Hewlett Packard XU-PIII-500. The card was replaced for a CAD 3d card. I can't get this to work right in my 300A/450. It locks up on all 3d games. I got the newest drivers from Matrox and HP just in case there is something goofy about the HP drivers. Is it possible that this is a proprietary type card meant specifically for HP machines and won't work on anything else? My G200 works fine on the same drivers-it is a retail card. The 400 has an HP in its part no. also and that is all I see different. I hate to come so close to having a G400 and not use it so can anyone help out here or am I wasting my time with this card? I do believe I removed old drivers correctly before I installed the G400.

[Alfie]

I'm glad to see you followed my advice and posted here.
There are others here far more knowledgeable than I,and hopefully the cavalry is close behind.I'm going to assume the g400 out of the HP machine can be installed in another computer.
First forget the HP drivers as they may just confuse the issue.Once again,where's the cavalry?You want to uninstall all old drivers,the link at the bottom of the page will take you over to murc's utilities.There is a uninstaller.The new drivers are 5.30 make sure this is what you have.Use the uninstaller .
To install the new drivers,in display properties- advanced setting -adapter-change-choose from list,choose standard display type,standard vga,ignore the warnings and proceed,reboot.
Once again, repeat process,click on have disc and point out where the downloaded drivers are,if you forget the exact path click on browse.Also make sure all programs are closed,before installing,leave only explorer and systray active.
Proceed with install.Reboot,as a quick test click on screensavers choose one of the 3d (3d pipes,for example) and test,if this works,you're 1/2 the way home,if problems persist get back and we'll get that g400 up and running.
It would also be useful if you were to post your system specs and irq's

http://www.murc.ws/Utils.html


[This message has been edited by Alfie (edited 11 November 1999).]

[RAB]

While you are at Matrox getting drivers, get the newest BIOS for the G400. If you are having problems, it could be because HP has modified the BIOS for some reason. If you can get the G400 running even in safe mode, look in the screen properties |settings |advanced |information to see what bios is in the G400-HP.

If you've never flashed you graphics card's bios before, be sure to do it very carefully. Read the directions twice and take your time. Now that you can do it from Windows, its not as hard as it used to be.
RAB

[dondrd]

I guess we could start with what's in the box.
Abit BH6 mobo, 128 mb pc-100 ram
IBM 9 gb, WD 1.2 gb hdds
ACER 40x CDROM
Celeron 300a@450
2 ea CL V2s SLI
Matrox G200 8mb(until the 400 works or doesn't)
MX300 sound card
Logitech Wingman Extreme digital
Phoebe 56k modem
Princeton 17" screen
bunch of fans
cpu temp no greater than 104F.
Windows 98
G400 Dual Head #G4 + MDHA/16/HP (for home or office use)
What happens is when I select D3D, games lock up after about 10 seconds (H & D, SS2, Halflife...) Matter of fact the machine gets real unstable.
The is a new factory installed HP XU 16 mb card that was pulled out for a FireGL in a CAD workstation. It's a freebe so I would like to make it work (who wouldn't) I have the 5.30 drivers now. I'll try your instructions and see how it goes. If it poops itself, I'll post IRQs, etc. It's late. Thanks a lot for helping. Also, I just left Matrox sight and didn't see anything about BIOS updates. Any help?

[This message has been edited by dondrd (edited 11 November 1999).]

[Alfie]

Bios updates can be found on this site.Here's the shortcut:
http://www.murc.ws/Bios/BIOS.html

[RAB]

Sorry Alfie, I keep forgetting that everything you need is right here. I won't forget next time.
RAB

[dondrd]

Thanks people, I'll give it a shot and let you know if it blows up or something.

[KvHagedorn]

Try first uninstalling ALL old video drivers from your machine. Make sure you have no IRQ conflicts.. If it's been awhile since you reinstalled Windows, that might help too. If you are doing all these things and still have problems, let us know..

------------------
Kind Regards,

KvH

[dondrd]

OKAY folks, here we go. The machine locks in all 3d games as soon as the game starts. BUT when I set the ABIT bios back to 66mhz is seems to do fine, tho' too slow for me. Could it be the AGP setting in bios? I can only get the card to work at the 1/1 setting @ 100mhz, (not doing games tho'). The G200 was set for 1/1 @ 100mhz for FSB. Let me make sure I'm clear -the G400 seems to work with the FSB clocked at 66, 75, and 83 w/ AGP set to 2/3(I have to double check 83-it was getting late) at 100mhz AGP set to 1/1 it locks machine in any 3d game and eventually will lock anyway. I removed the old drivers, and Voodoo 2 cards. I did not have time to remove the V2 drivers yet but I will tonite. So in short, the g400 seems to work ok when the processor is set to 66mhz-83mhz, not good at 100mhz. I am not using any OC utility for video. Did I cover the details here ok? The w98 installation is only about a month old. I use Norton disc utilities and virus check frequenlty and just updated my virus checker for the "bubbleboy" crap. Those guys ought to quit the virus stuff and write some good games.
I updated the G400 bios too. How can I post a screenshot of my mobo bios here?

[This message has been edited by dondrd (edited 12 November 1999).]

[ALBPM]

Hi dondrd,

First under "Bios features setup" in your Bios - make sure the Video Bios Shadow is disabled.

Under "Chipset Features Setup":

-Disable - System Bios Cacheable, Video Bios Cacheable,Video Ram Cacheable.
-Set AGP Aperature Size to 256
-Disable Spread Spectrum Modulated

Under "Integrated Peripherals"

-Set Init Display First to AGP

Here is a blank copy of the Bios for a BX6 rev 2 motherboard. You can easily modify this to match your BH6 Bios setup and then copy and paste into your replies here.
http://home.att.net/~albpm2/bx6rev2bios.txt
Just use notepad to edit this file. And you can copy and paste the sections in question.

Paul

------------------
P3-616(112x5.5), ABIT BE6, 256MB PC100, MILL G400 MAX-32MB on BNC, Quantum3D Obsidian2 X-24 on D-sub, IBM Deskstars 18GB ATA/66 and 13.5GB ATA/66, 21"Trinitron, SCSI CDR/RW, SCSI ZIP,SB Live!Value,USR Voice Faxmodem Pro(USB Ext),Epson 1520 printer,Umax1200S scanner,WN98 all in a Addtronics 7896A case and a (Not so Messy Desk) ;-P

[Wombat]

up!

[Alfie]

dondrd
Did we lose you?

[dondrd]

Nope, still screwing around with this card.
Nothing worse than a freebee and it don't work! Machine still locks even with BIOS settings set as previously suggested. It seems to do better when I don't over clock the cpu to 450, but it's too slow for me when it's not oc'd. I am not using an oc utility for the card. Upgraded Bios, drivers, washed my truck, did laundry, and still it locks-just stops dead/then I need to reboot. My G200 uses same drivers and is flawless. Could there be a conflict with the V2 drivers? I haven't removed those yet. Maybe I should clean those off?!?. I see others who use V2SLI and G400 with no problems. Must be something wierd about this card. Maybe HP screwed with it. Ill try cleaning off the v2 drivers and do a reinstall of the g400 and see how it goes. If it works ok then I'll reinstall the v2 drivers. This is like work! What would really suck is if I give this thing away and someone else gets it to work w/o any trouble. I won't be able to mess with it 'til the weekend 'cause of school. But I'll give it one more try.

[dondrd]

Nope, still screwing around with this card.
Nothing worse than a freebee and it don't work! Machine still locks even with BIOS settings set as previously suggested. It seems to do better when I don't over clock the cpu to 450, but it's too slow for me when it's not oc'd. I am not using an oc utility for the card. Upgraded Bios, drivers, washed my truck, did laundry, and still it locks-just stops dead/then I need to reboot. My G200 uses same drivers and is flawless. Could there be a conflict with the V2 drivers? I haven't removed those yet. Maybe I should clean those off?!?. I see others who use V2SLI and G400 with no problems. Must be something wierd about this card. Maybe HP screwed with it. Ill try cleaning off the v2 drivers and do a reinstall of the g400 and see how it goes. If it works ok then I'll reinstall the v2 drivers. This is like work! What would really suck is if I give this thing away and someone else gets it to work w/o any trouble. I won't be able to mess with it 'til the weekend 'cause of school. But I'll give it one more try. OOPS twice -sorry!

[This message has been edited by dondrd (edited 16 November 1999).]

[cjolley]

dondrd,
First change your FSB divider to 2/3 with your 100 mz FSB.
Also make sure that you have the latest bios for the BH6 & flash the G400 to the latest (make sure you let the flasher create a backup disk!)
The G400 can have trouble fitting in the BH6 AGP slot. (unpredictable) Try leaving the lockdown screw off the G400's flange.
Make sure a DIMM lock is not interfering with the fit of the G400. (Close the empty ones.)
Look at these links...
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/002102.html
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/002774.html
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/004833.html
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/005961.html

chuck

------------------
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!!!!




[This message has been edited by cjolley (edited 16 November 1999).]