Problem w/MatroxG400 and Athlon 600MHz

[leighton]

When I installed my Matrox G400 card to a K7M board I encountered that the video card is not detected. When I manually installed the driver it is not accepted too. So I can't used my Matrox Adapter. What to do with it??

My System config:
CPU Athlon 600MHz
SRam: 64MB KIngston 133Mhz
Mobo: Asus K7M
Videocard: Matrox Millenium G400 Dual head w/ TV out
Power Supply: XEDAC 300w.

[Targon]

First, make sure your K7M is version 1.04(I've not heard of anyone with the older hardware versions in a long while so you should be ok there). Then, check your BIOS, you should be running version 1007 or later. I'm personally running a K7M with BIOS 1209 without a problem. Then, you should make sure you don't have anything in the PCI slot right next to the AGP slot(Possible IRQ shareing problem). By not seeing it, do you mean you are hearing beeping, and no display on bootup, or just that Win98 doesn't list it? And of course, please post your IRQ usage to verify that your card isn't having any conflicts. The K7M has ZERO problem with the G400 series from what I've seen.

[leighton]

Yes! I do hear a beeping sound. Also when I shut down it doesn't turn off the power automatically as it is using ATX PS. Another thing is that my sound card is beside the AGP slot. I have to try this. Thanks

[Gum]

Hi, saw your post in HardwareZone.

Kindly read my reply to the post and hope it helps!

[Perception]

err wheres the site? i got some singapore site and since im having the same problem i wanna know where it is hehehe thanks

[CannyOne]

If the card is being recognized it should appear in a display given at POST. It should give you an IRQ value between 9-11. If this doesn't happen there's nothing you can do driver wise to get the card to work. (I've had this problem with other cards) The video card also has a BIOS, which you might try updating. Matrox also supplies a Card BIOS recovery Utility that would help here. But I'm not sure that you have it.

You might try clearing the NVRAM once to see if it initializes the video card properly. This is found on the PnP Setup page of the M/B bios. Set it to Yes then restart. Not sure with the AMI bios if you have to set it back again or not. Other than that you might try to reflash the bios. I'm currently using revision 127 beta and it is stable. (you should perform beta flashes with Flash822)

All this "flashing" kinda worries me a little. Be Carefull! Make sure you format any, and all, floppies before using them. I don't care if it says "Pre-Formated", reformat that sucker. Because this is the Number 1 cause of failed flashes. I know I've done it.

[Kurt]

hi,

there are other problems related to the mobo. 1/make sure you uninstalled all other graphics cards drivers
2/make sure that the AGP miniport driver 4.45 (latest) is installed.
3/try disabling ACPI in the bios
4/if it still does not work, have the right drivers ready in a folder. When Windows detects your card and asks for the drivers, direct it to the folder where you put the drivers. After the boot, go into that folder and lauch the setup prog.
5/last but not least, check that your powersupply is "strong" enough (you can check the compatibility list on AMD's)

maybe you want to post your IRQ list as well.

see at POST if the MGA is sharing an IRQ with another device. I had a problem like that with my RAID adapter. I could not finish a boot until I managed to have the MGA share an IRQ with my soundcard...

[leighton]

Hello its me again,
I have tried to load the Flash Bios for my K7 mobo but it gave me this message: bios file is too large. Is there a right way to load it successfully? Another thing, Do I have to do iit without any softwarein the HD. How about the POST where to see it?

[paulcs]

Are you using a Windows boot disk?

You can make a boot disk in DOS that won't cause this problem. At the DOS prompt:

format a: /s

Hit enter. (Note: there is a space between "a:" and "/".)

Then, follow Asus's instructions.

Make sure your board is completely in the slot and properly aligned. Give it a good push.

This can be very deceptive. It might look like it is in, but the back end can slip just a hair out of place when screwing in the board's plate. Again, make sure it is entirely in the slot and the back doesn't come up when you are attaching it to the case.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[CannyOne]

Yeah leighton, Paulcs is right! Make completely sure your G400 is properly seated. I have to check mine every time I pull the processor and reinsert it. The M/B flexes ever so slightly and the Video card can loose it's "seating".

As for the BIOS update, go here > ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Slot_A/AMD_Chipset/AMD_751/K7M/ On this page you will find the newly released update. (oh! it occured to me later in this post that you might want to get the latest flash utility while you're there. See the reference below It is called km108.zip. Format a floppy disk and copy the system files to that disk (you can use paul's method given above, or (in Windows) with a disk in the drive right click on the "A:" drive and select "format", then chose "full format" and "copy system files", finally click on the "start button" (of that dialog box)to begin the format. Go here > ftp://ftp.asuscom.de/pub/ASUSCOM/BIOS/Slot_A/AMD_Chipset/AMD_751/ and get the latest revision of the bios flash utility, labeled flash822.zip. Unpack the flash utility and the km1008.bin to the formated floppy disk. Then restart the system and allow it to boot to the floppy. Type in "flash822" and press enter. Once the utility starts, use the down arrow to select the second line, for the path of the file to load, and press enter. Now type in "a:\km1008.bin" and press enter. It will ask you to confirm that you want to load this ROM. Do so by pressing enter again. The flash bios ROM will be updated, it will display a little progress bar, and it should tell you that it has successfully completed. Then just restart the machine. At this point I would go into bios and double check the settings you want and save.

You will still need to make sure you are getting an IRQ assignment from bios. The POST display (breifly, before the Windblows "splash screen", then for a moment or two afterward) comes up after the the drives are recognized and you hear the beep. At the bottom is where it should indicate what IRQs are assigned to the different devices. The one of interest should say something about VGA, or display, I believe. It is also listed last on my display. If one isn't displayed. Make sure to check that "Primary Display" under the "Advanced CMOS Setup" is set to "VGA/EGA". It might also help to set the "Primary Graphics Adapter" under "Plug and Play Setup" to "AGP". Again the IRQ assignment for your G400 should be in the 9-11 range. Without this, even if you can get the drivers to load, the card will not function properly.

Hope you get this figured out!

[leighton]

Hello Everyone,
First of all thank you very much for your help! Finally I did it. The cause of matrox not able to be detected is the SDRAM that I'm using. From the review that I read the K7M mobo can support PC133. But again tried another ram w/c is PC100 and it works. Now thats the culprit. Also IRQ setting is at 11 as checked.
Initially what it detected is just the simple VGA adapter. Try the autorun of Matrox CD but tells that the card is not supported. So manually installed it in "add/delete hardware". Then it's detected. So far no problem with the VGA adapter except for its autorun CD rom software.
Some things that I still have to settle:
1. Random Beeping sound in my PC.
2. Upgrade my flash bios. (Will try later)
3. Upgrade the matrox powerdesk later.
4. Can't run the sample game from the matrox CD. (Could be memory problem as I borrowed 32MB from my friend to test it.)
Anyway just tell the guys that when assemblying PC using ASUS K7M mobo, don't use a PC133 ram.
Just update or correct me about that statement.
Again, thanks a lot to all of you. I have to sleep now so that I can be refresh for tonight's job.

[netster]

the big problem is ... to make the asus k7m agp 2x ... tried MGA Tweak ... no way to get it agp2x ...

[ParaKnowYa]

It sometimes is driver dependant, make sure you are running the latest drivers or the most stable drivers like the optimized G400 driver pack from www.paraknowya.de which I put together to ensure 100% stability on my system (Asus K7M + 700MHz K7).

Besides use the newest Bios for the mobo! K7M works with AGP 2x at least v1.04 and higher does!

[leighton]

THanks again!
When I tried to load the flash bios I can't proceed because the message says that file loaded is too large. Is there anything I can do about that?

[leighton]

I already flash my bios!! But it is normal that when you do a POST you will hear a beeping sound? So what I did is that I reset the RTC RAM(the reset point is a small solder point which i short with a screw driver). and enter bios setup. I can't see the bios version because booting up is very fast. So far my system is stable. By the way how can I fully utilized my AGP2X?? Please reply!!!