RAB, I think we're getting somewhere

[Muad'Dib]

Hey, I was just reading through another post by Matroxsux (I think his name was) and the possibility came up that maybe his ram was bad. Do you think this is a possiblity? It runs everything fine (how is the expression?) ?albeit? slowly so I wouldn't imagine that to be the problem, but... What are your thoughts? It's also a reason to bring it to the top so no one forgets about it...

[Muad'Dib]

Hey, just checking something. Is the latest bios from Award is 4.51? If not, let me know and maybe that will solve my problems. I also have an SMBIOS/DMI version of 2.2. ??? Thanks.

[This message has been edited by Muad'Dib (edited 24 January 2000).]

[RAB]

I think 4.51 is the latest. That's what is on both of my machines. The manufacturers add theirs on top of 4.51. I don't know about the SMBIOS - I saw that Sandra was asking for an upgrade to version 2.3, but Epox's latest is still 2.2, I think - wahtever that is.

I did find something interesting though. I found that my sound card was causing problems even though it appeared to be installed correctly. I had it installed, but the soundblaster emulation was not in the device manager list. The IRQ list showed IRQ 5 as "Unknown Device", which is commonly how the soundblaster emulation (DOS mode driver) shows up.

I remembered seeing the soundblaster emulation in the IRQ list before, so I deleted all the sound drivers in device manager, shut down, and moved the soundcard to another slot. Lo and behold, when I rebooted, Windows recognized the sound card and installed the drivers - including the soundblaster emulation. SBe now shows up in the IRQ list (as "Yamaha Legacy sound" in my case) and the problem game I had, Outcast, now works just fine. No more freezing after an hour or so.

The slot I used for my sound card is the PCI slot furthest from the AGP slot. On my EPOX, it is not shared with an ISA slot since the board doesn't have any shared slots. So delete your sound drivers and move your soundcard to another slot, as far as possible from the G400. I now have an open slot between each card. If you have room, try it that way. My cards are in order from the AGP slot: G400, open, NIC, open, Sound, open, ISA modem.

I know we probably tried this along the way, but maybe its worth one more try. The clue here is that the SB emulation gets installed and shows up in the IRQ list. I know a lot of people just turn it off, but until it is properly installed, and your games quit freezing, just leave it on.

RAB

[Muad'Dib]

I currently don't have a sound card inside my system.... I still haven't gotten around to putting it in since last I took it out. I'm fairly lazy when it comes to things like that. Could there be any residual crap from it? I just deleted it from the system properties (or whatever its called).

[RAB]

If you just reformated and reloaded Win98, then there is no residual crap from a sound card. We need to try something else. Since you just reloaded everything, could you list your equipment again other than the Iwill and K6-2 300. No IRQ list yet. Just the names of whats in there - like the slot listing I used above.

RAB

P.S. How did you frag Haig in UT without sound? It must have been pretty dull without being able to hear him die.

[This message has been edited by RAB (edited 24 January 2000).]

[Muad'Dib]

Yeah well, you do what you have to... (in re: to Haig). Ok, in my AGP slot, I have my G400MAX. My 2 closest PCI slots are free. Then I have my NIC. And everything after that are free. I still have my two hd's, my 32x sony cd-rom, my dvd-rom, my floppy drive, and my crappy 250 w p.s. (I swear it was more when I bought it). Let me know if I missed anything.

[RAB]

I don't remember if your modem is ISA or PCI. But lets not worry about that right now. Try deleting the NIC in device manger, shut down and move the NIC to the slot next to the AGP slot. I know this isn't the normal suggestion, but thats where my NIC works. That also might put it on IRQ 11 along with the G400, but thats OK and it works on my computer. If that works OK, and your modem is an ISA, put your sound card back in the PCI slot furthest from the AGP slot. If your modem is PCI, just try to leave a slot open between each card, but keep the NIC in the slot next to the AGP slot. Let me know what happens.

RAB

P.S. If you get an extra $90 burning a hole in your pocket, go get a K6III-400, if you can still find one, especially if you can find a 2.2 volt version.

[Muad'Dib]

As to that 90 bucks, screw that! I'm getting an Athlon 700 when the new VIA chipset comes out.... I haven't used a modem in a couple of years, so I won't worry about where I'll put it. My modem is sitting just fine in my dad's computer... Will try moving my NIC shortly. I'll let you know before the night is over.

[RAB]

Leno is almost over here in the EST zone. I'll check the forum in he morning and see how it worked.
RAB

[Muad'Dib]

Ok, I moved my NIC and nothing happened. It still freezes. Now it's also on IRQ 11 with my MAX. Something else to note. I decided to reinstall all busmastering/agp drivers just to make sure they were in the right order and the busmastering came up with an error that said:

Dos CD-ROM and IDE drivers may conflict with PCI bus master drivers in windows. Please remove your CD-ROM or IDE driver from config.sys or autoexec.bat. Do you wish to continue?

I don't know if that's standard, but ... As far as I know, my config.sys and autoexec.bat are fine. Take a look and let me know please.

Config.sys:
hmmm, that's strange, I don't seem to have a config.sys. Or at least, there doesn't appear to be anything in it.... help?

Autoexec.bat:
c:\progra~1\networ~1\mcafee~1\scanpm.exe c:\
@if errorlevel 1 pause
c:\matrox\util\bvext.exe

I also don't have any cd's anymore. Under system properies -> hard disk controllers, it says:
ALi Bus Master PCI to IDE Controller
ALi Primary IDE controller (bus master)
!ALi Secondary IDE controller (bus master)

Under the secondary's properties, it says this device is eiter not present or working properly blah blah blah.... Drivers not installed .... blah blah blah.... Are these problems related by any chance?

I also discovered some little ALi IDE Utility (interesting what you can dig up on your hd ). Aside from missing my cd's on the second IDE channel, both hd's are using DMA (although according to my device manager they arent). Should I change that to PIO/FIFO on/off or DMA? RAB, I remember you asking about the DMA once and I guess it's on....?

Sorry about the long post. Thanks for hangin in there....

[RAB]

Config.sys and autoexec.bat were the start up files for old Windows 3.1 and aren't needed for Win98. Win98 doesn't use config.sys, so don't worry about that being empty. The autoexec.bat file is used to run DOS devices (usually sound drivers) and utilities before Windows starts. Yours is running a virus scan and then a Matrox utility bvext.exe. I don't remember what that one does. Is that the one that resets the G400 bios? That might be part of your problem. You shouldn't need any DOS utilities to run. You can safely delete all these lines from your autoexec.bat and it won't affect Win98, but you will have to run your antivirus from Windows. If you are familiar with editing DOS files, you can rem these out to see what happens. Start/Run/Sysedit. When the box comes up with the autoexec.bat file, just place the letters "rem" and a space in front of each line in the file. Save, exit and reboot. You can take out the rem later to turn them back on.

I don't understand why you got the warning from the busmaster drivers. There is nothing in your config.sys or autoexec.bat that have anything to do with CD-ROM or IDE drivers.

RAB

[Muad'Dib]

As far as I know, vbext just saves the settings of the monitor for the G400 so it doesn't have to reload a plug n pray monitor and all that crap each time. Correct me if I'm wrong (but that's all I've seen it do). Anyway, I REM'd them out and will see what happens next time I reset.... Just out of curiosity, what do the "G" stand for in the Matrox products? Anything particularly? Not important, but I've been wondering. Thanks

[Muad'Dib]

Alright, I just want to go over all this once more. Please let me know if something in my bios is wrong and either will help with the G400 or will just plain help.

Here goes.

Under the Chipset menu:
Auto configuration: Enabled
AT Bus Clock: clk 2/4
L2 Tag Ram size: 8
Dram Timing: Fast
SDRAM CAS Latency: 3
Pipelined Function: Disabled
AGP Aperture Size: 128
DRAM Date Integrity Mode: Disabled
Memory Hole at 15-16M: Disabled
Host Read DRAM Command Mode: Sync.
AGP Read Burst: Enabled
ISA Line Buffer: Enabled
Passive Release: Enabled
Delay Transaction: Disabled
Primary Frame Buffer: All
VGA Frame Buffer: Enabled
Data Merge: Disabled
IO Recovery Period: 1us

PNP/PCI Configuration:
PNP OS Installed: NO (shouldn't it be yes?)
Resources controlled by: Auto
Reset Configuration Data: Disabled
PCI IRQ Activated By: Level
Slot 1-4 use IRQ: auto for all of them

BIOS Features:
Everything I'm sure is right except for these:
PCI/VGA Palette Snoop: Disabled
Assign IRQ for VGA: Enabled
Video BIOS Shadow: disabled (as are all the shadowing)


Please let me know if I'm missing something here. Thanks. If all this is right, I will just RMA the damn thing.

[RAB]

Whoa! your bios is quite different than mine. Nonetheless, you can try SDRAM CAS at 2 instead of 3. The PnP OS should be yes, but this shouldn't make a difference. Palette Snoop should be disabled. Video Bios can be shadowed, but some have reported problems that way.

All in all, there is nothing glaringly wrong in the way you have it set. I hate to say it, but it might be time to RMA it.

RAB

[vanguardian1]

Can I take a shot at it?

ISA Line Buffer: Enabled (Disable!)
Passive Release: Enabled (Disable!)
Primary Frame Buffer: All (Disable!)
VGA Frame Buffer: Enabled (Disable!)

I only say this because I've ran into a few systems that crashed with any of these enabled, or it affected hardware compatibility.....