System crash when monitor turns off (Win98SE evergy saving)r

[flenn]

OK, I don't expect that anyone would have come across the solution to this problem, but I'll ask anyway. I'm running a G400 on an MSI 6309 (Via) and had no problems running the 5.41 drivers. I just installed a V3 2000 PCI and had no problems with the installation. I can select either card in most games, and dual monitors works great. I thought all was well until the monitors went into energy saving mode. I have them set to shut down after 45 minutes of no activity. After they shut down, the machine continues to work fine as a server for my home LAN until I try to wake the monitors up. At this point, the machine locks hard and requires a reset to reboot.

This happens with the 5.41, 5.50 and 5.52 (all were installed properly). I even tried the new 4.03 VIA agp driver and still no luck. BTW, this happens whether expanded desktop is enabled or not. I did try reinstalling the 3dfx 1.04 drivers and am still having the same problems.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Jorden]

Maybe a problem with your monitor drivers?

As you've checked everything else already, why not check if your monitors are energy saving compliant?

If they are, check on the manufacterers homepage if they have new .INF files for the monitors and update them.

What you could always try to do is disable hardware acceleration (Properties of My Computer, Screen, slide hardware accel all the way to the left).

Jord.

[flenn]

Thanks Jorden. Monitors are Samsung 900P's and are energy saving compliant. Samsung's website has the same .inf file that I have installed. I haven't had any problems using this feature for the last 3 vidcards, including the G400. It's only when I added the V3 did this problem pop up.

I appreciated the suggestion but I don't want to disable hardware acceleration.

Anyone else?

[kjliew]

Do you have the harddisks spin down after some time?? This may be a possible cause for the hard lockup.

By the way, keep the latest version of BIOS for your motherboard. Some BIOSes could be real buggy on power management. Are you using APM or ACPI??

[flenn]

kjliew,

The hard disks never spin down. Only the monitors are set to sleep after 45 minutes, nothing else.

I'm not sure about the APM/ACPI question. Can you explain the difference. I know APM power management is enabled in BIOS. Again, I had no problems before the installation of the second card.

Good point about the mobo BIOS. I know I'm not running the latest and this may have been addressed. I'm off to MSI's website now.

[flenn]

Just a quick update to say that the latest BIOS didn't fix the problem. Suggestions welcome.

[Jorden]

Hmmm, It's only when I added the V3 did this problem pop up.

Might not be the problem, but it won't hurt to ask you

Did you try moving the V3 to another slot? Did you check on IRQ conflicts?

Jord.

[flenn]

Jorden,

No conflicts, that was one of the first things I checked.

I haven't tried switching slots yet. All my PCI slots are full, but I'll try swapping with another card. One thing I did notice is that the V3 shares IRQ 11 with the G400. Like I said everything works fine (games and apps) but maybe that's related to the problem.

Thanks for your help.

[Jorden]

You're welcome flenn, but you should try to get the G400 on it's own on IRQ 9, 10 or 11.

How you do that is all down in the FAQ forum and the Archive.

Jord.

[Ashley]

For the purposes of troubleshooting, there is a 250k screen saver at the link below that may help you isolate the problem: http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/dpms.exe

When you go to configure it, you'll see a diagnostic page that lets you power down either the G400 or the V3, using API, BIOS or discrete register-level addressing, in standby, suspend and reduced power-off modes.

[flenn]

Thanks for the link Ashley. I was able to set the monitor to sleep immediately under the Settings tab. The screensaver starts after 45 minutes and puts the monitors right to sleep, exactly what I want. It looks like an extra layer of software was a good thing in this case.

I'll revisit this issue when Matrox/3dfx releases new drivers, but for now I'm all set. Thanks everyone for all your help.