It's a sad day :(

[xortam]

Why don't you post your problem in the Matrox Hardware forum along with your IRQ listing? There are several folks there who'll probably be able to resolve this for you.

[paulcs]

Sorry to hear about your problems. Just a heads up on the GeForce2:

Most of the problems associated with the G400 are identical to potential problems associated with the GeForce and GeForce2. The nVidia board will most likely seek out IRQ 9 or 11, depending on the motherboard. Like the G400, it should be on IRQ 9, 10, or 11, and not share with another device.

Having said that, I've noticed that both the G400 and GeForce2 can often get along with ACPI on the same IRQ. The SCSI board is another matter entirely. If you have problems, try moving the SCSI card to another slot.

It's the same deal with getting the board properly into the IRQ slot. I'm pretty sure many of the problems people are having with the GeForce are related to this issue. Guillemot went so far as to not connect the top of the plate on their 32 MB GeForce2 to the top of the PCB. Now the board can go one way while the plate bends the other. I thought it was a design flaw, but now I suspect it is just a smart move.

The GeForce2 will ship with AGP 4X disabled in drivers, and, most likely, AGP sidebanding disabled in the BIOS. If the latter is true, the only way to enable sidebanding is to hack the BIOS files and reflash. It's a dangerous fix, and I believe it is just not worth it. AGP 4X can be enabled with a registry hack. In the case of Creative's GeForce2, I've read that AGP 4X and sidebanding can be enabled via their drivers.

NVidia disabled AGP 4X and, I believe, their OEM's disabled sidebanding because of stability issues with VIA chipsets. I enabled AGP 4X with a GeForce2 and a VIA Apollo Pro 133A-based motherboad, got a tiny performance increase, and eventually lost stability.

The Detonator 5.XX driver sets before 5.14 had serious compatibility problems with VIA chipsets, particularly with the KX-133. I haven't had problems with either 5.16 or 5.22, the most current "official" release and my VIA Apollo Pro board. If you do, you might want to try 5.14.

I recommend coming here if you have problems. They don't call them nVidiots for nothing.

Good luck. With that big Althon, it should be very fast.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[JC]

It's a sad day

It is indeed.

Having recently upgraded my old P3 system to an Athlon 850 with Abit KA7 mobo, it seems that given my setup almost every time I boot up - the graphics card (G400 MAX) conflicts with my SCSI card and ACPI thingy. I've looked through issues posted on MURC and tried altering BIOS settings and reinstalling windows. The settings for these 3 items cannot be changed manually in Win98SE and therefore I'm a bit stuck.

I'm replacing the G400 with a GeForce GTS (have ordered) - it better work or it's going back

At least the G400 can go back in my P3 where I know it will work.

------------------
Athlon 850, 128MB PC133 Ram, G400Max, Abit KA7 MoBo, AWE64 Gold, 2940AU Scsi with 32x Reader and 4x4x16 Writer, Jaz and Zip, Card Cooler.

[JC]

Thanks guys, it is a bizarre problem as there are no interrupt conflicts and it's not particularly consistant. I have infact got the Geforce GTS from Creative now - it may not be the best but it does fly and no problems at all so far.

Q2@800x32 = 200fps, @1024x32 = 150~
3dMark2k@800x16 = 6600~

Just in case you do wander by and were interested in the IRQ's i will post them.

IRQ 9 = Adaptec 2940 SCSI card
IRQ 10= 3Com Network Card
IRQ 11= G400
IRQ 15= ACPI 'thingy' - 2nd IDE Channel disabled.

All other IRQ's are as you would expect. It is as i think i mentioned, a memory conflict - which seemed to have no predictability. BIOS tweaking made no diff' and you can't modify those settings in Windows. All latest drivers installed and BIOS.

I'm not overly concerned as the G400MAX will go back in my old O/C P3 where it will continue to look good for a long time.

Did i mention i have a G400 32 in my Celeron too - just so you know im not deserting

------------------
Primary System: Athlon 850, 128MB PC133 Ram, GeForce GTS 32DDR, Abit KA7 MoBo, AWE64 Gold, 2940AU Scsi with 32x Reader and 4x4x16 Writer, Jaz and Zip, Card Cooler.

Seconday System: P3 @ 560
Tertiary System: Celeron 400

[motub]

JC, I don't see that you took xortam's advice, so I'm going to pop you over to MHW.

Why should you spend extra money on another video card if we can get your G400 running?

Good luck!!

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

[JohnT]

JC -

Here's how I configured my KA7 with G400Max and SCSI cards (2), (I'm using W98, not SE) and was able to get seperate irq's for each board:

G400Max in AGP slot, 2940UW in PCI slot 2, AAA-131U2 RAID card in PCI slot 4

enter BIOS, PNP configuration, set pin 1 to irq 11 (g400max), pin 2 to irq 10 (2940UW), pin 3 to irq 5 (for PCI128 SB, later), pin 4 to irq 9 (AAA131U2), all ide stuff disabled in Integrated Perifs, disable ACPI (KA7_RY BIOS)

clean install of w98 with only G400, SCSI cards, reboot

VIA 4in1422, did not install ide dd as no ide here, reboot

VIA AGP4.03, reboot

G400Max drivers, reboot

At this point, in DM the G400Max is on irq 11, 2940UW on irq 10, and AAA-131U2 on irq 9

I have a triple boot system with W98 on a seperate disk attached to the 2940UW, and NT4 and w2k are on the RAID array attached to the AAA-131U2.

An interesting observation: The GTS2 (ProphetII) I have will not work on this system. When I install it, at boot-up the AAA-131U2 is skipped. It will work with either SCSI card installed, but not with both installed. In order to make this triple boot system work, I have to enable the BIOS on both SCSI cards, and apparently there are not enough upper memory resources at boot time for all three with the GTS2 (even though it works fine with the G400Max).

JohnT

[This message has been edited by JohnT (edited 21 June 2000).]

[This message has been edited by JohnT (edited 21 June 2000).]

[mynx]

I see that you are using a 3com nic. I was having strange problems and was informed to go to the 3com website and upgrade the drivers. I never had any problems once I did. I am running Win98se also. 98se doesn't have the best 3com drivers included.

[TTCharon]

Just for the Record, I've never heard of any Abit Mobo that doesn't support the AGP G-series.

As JohnT mentions it is crucial to disable the ACPI. You get nothing but trouble from that!

And what mynx says about 3Com NICs is absolutely true. Get the new drivers!

All in All. It isn't such a mystery that it won't work, You'll have to eliminate the above problems first and then move on to what might come next. It will work in the end!

BTW I would try to go for IRQ 9

Good Luck!

------------------
Abit BE6-2, P3-600E@820(6x135), 192mb MCT 8ns CAS3, G400MAX(OC'ed 110%), SBLIVE, AHA 2940AU, WDC 4.3, WDC 6.4, IBM GXP34 20.5, Mitsumi FX48, Yamaha 4416S, Zyxel Prestige 100IH, 3Com 905C-TX On W98SE, DX 7.0a, PD 5.52

[valentin_nils]

Hi JC etc.

please read my posting carefully I have spend two weeks researching the problem and I finally got it working. We are talking about ca. 18 Bios settings which need to be set correctly (especially when installing win2k pro).

there were a lot of postings earlier here on the matroxusers site. the best so far was from 27 may from miachael doering.


Please read ALL links enclosed as they contain conplementing information to each other.
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/008664.html
http://www.au-ja.de/review-g400s-eng.html

the main important thing is that you download the latest bios ( at the moment the beta ka7_ry.boo) from the abit ftp site otherwise you waste your time.

You may also directly download from these ftp-servers:

ABIT FTP Site in Taiwan:
ftp://ftp.abit.com.tw/pub/

Mirror in Australia:
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/abit

Mirrors in Europe:
ftp://ftp.univ-lille1.fr/pub/abit/
ftp://ftp.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/pub/mirror/abit/ ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/general/devices/abit/


Mirror in Poland:
ftp://ftp.veracomp.com.pl/pub/drivers/abit/
ftp://ftp.abitech.pl/vol2/mirrors/ftp.abit.com/pub/


Mirror in Russian:
ftp://ftp.abit.com.ru/abit/

Mirrors in Taiwan:
For TANET users:
ftp://ftp.cis.nctu.edu.tw/Vendors/ABIT http://salebios.tiger2.net/vendor/ABIT

For NETO corp. and other TWIX/TWNAP-peer ISPs' Users
ftp://ftp.neto.net/pub/Vendors/Abit

don't forget to craete an emergency disk with the previous bios before updateing ( just in case)

O.K now lets start. I assume you visit the links which i enclosed and ALL related links from this pages as otherwise gets to much for this posting.

I will just explain my bios settings as found out the rest is explained at the links enclosed.

make sure you ENABLE this settings in your bios:

PNP OS installed
USB Controller
AGP driving value DA
AGP Aparture size 128MB

make sure you DISABLE this settings in your bios:

Auto ESCD
ACPI
SDRAM interleave
RESET Configuration
Virus warning
p2c/c2p currency
fast r-w turnaround
pci master 0 ws write
agp master 1 ws write
agp master 1 ws read

dram delay NOT AUTO, anything else
agp drive control value: manual
cpu L2 cache id :default
video off- always on


also install the follwing drivers ( best stability)

via 4in1422
agp 4.03
usb version 108

for win98 g400 driver version 552
for w2k g400 driver version 503

make sure each device has it's own IRQ shown in the start up table before win98 or w2k loads. you may have to swap cards to make sure each device has it's own IRQ

sorry for this awful form it's 3am right now and I am a bit tired.

However let me know if the info was useful.

Main point is get the beta bios version from the abit ftp site or you are wasting your time.

best reagrds

nils valentin

valentin_nils@hotmail.com

PS: I think you should include the via issue in your title so people don't have to guess what it is about. this will guarrante more replies.

[This message has been edited by valentin_nils (edited 22 June 2000).]