How to overclock g400 using bios/pin files?

[DummyPLUG]

How to overclock g400 using bios/pin files?

[Maggi]

GBM has some interesting views and advices on that topic ...
http://grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/matrox/

Cheers,
Maggi

[DummyPLUG]

but those are G200 only...

[Hunsow]

http://www.hunsow.tmfweb.nl/overclock.html

[Maggi]

Nice one, Hunsow !



Shame on me that I didn't know it ...

Cheers,
Maggi

[gbm]

Close, but no cigar...
1. Changing RAMDAC limits has no effect below 2048x1536, so one may safely set it even to 100 (positions 39..43)

2. Locations 65/66 and 75/76 have slightly different meaning. Sorry, no more info allowed...

3. For more successful overclocking, first change location 81 to 0x20049511.

4. Hint for reverse-engineering: save the BIOS image, change some PInS values by hand and then run MXINFO on the modified image.

[Hunsow]

1. I knew that, on my 22" monitor it's useful to increase the RAMDAC limit.

2. Who cares, it's working.

3. Thanks, I did notice that in the MAX PINs, which I got after I made the page.

4. How do you think I got this far?

[2K]

****, I think I screwed my card. After runing for some time at 150/200 bios overclocked it started to make reapeted short pauses in games (like it had hiccups). No screen corruption, no nothing, just those pauses.
I inserted the bios recovery disk (not the emergency disk) and booted. It did its job and restarted but the card was still clocked at 150/200 and it still had pauses. I inserted the bios programming disk in, booted
and ran "PROGBIOS -i auto -s pins.txt" (the old pin file) and the card was clocked at its default values, but I still had pauses.
I inserted the emergency disk and booted. It did its job but I still had pauses. I upgraded the bios version (more like downgraded) and no more pauses. Ran Matrox's tool and overclocked it by 118%, pauses again, no screen corruption.
Changed bios version again and no more pauses. I left it not overclocked for a few days and tryed Matrox's tool again and it worked.
Played Quake3, UT and had no more pauses. Ran StarTrek Armada and the pain started again.

Right now it doesn't matter if I overclock it or not, after some time it starts again, the only thing that cures it is changing the bios version. So, once every 2 days I have to change bios to make it work.

Can it still be saved ?



[This message has been edited by 2K (edited 14 June 2000).]

[2K]

Wrong face on the above post.
This one's more suited

[DummyPLUG]

What is the meaning of 81?
and why need to change it????

[PWM]

Hi All !!

There's pretty good info on G200 PINs structure - but not as good for G400 ..
Also it seems that some of you got a lot more complete info in case of G400.

So I would like to see all of this info gathered to one location
- like in the case of G200 ..
I don't see much sense to try keep this info secret:
It can be reverse-engineered anyway !!
.. It would just save lots of time and effort ..

Would the matroX-Filez be good place also for G400-info 8-)

And if someone is affraid of NDA things etc. - You could post some hints anonymously..
(Anyway much of this info is reverse-engineered ...)

[gbm]

If you want it so badly... Ok, here it is - visit my website. The missing important points will be added next week, but the general overclocking info has already been updated.

All of my G-series cards are overclocked via PInS. G100 and G200 just slightly, G400 from std. to Max-like settings using my own MCTLWTST values (and fan). Costed me two nights spent on reading Matrox and Samsung manuals, but here it is: early board with slow 6ns RAM and hardly overclockable G400 chip running as Max (well, slightly better than that). I get 1600 3DMarks2k wih K6-III 400.

[This message has been edited by gbm (edited 16 June 2000).]

[PWM]

Hi !!

Hmm... this seems to be goin' to the right direction

(Thanks in advance gbm !!!)

I would like to see at least the info needed to include
all the data in MGATweak to PINs file ..
including memory timings !!!
(I think that this would be the most useful thing ... ;-)

So I'll wait for the info (although impatiently ;-)
.. and I'll be very happy when I get it ..!!

[ASL]

Well, after reading this thread and a bunch of the referenced info (especially GBM's documentation at the MatroX files site), I've sat down this past week and done some experimentation to figure out how to program tweak info (clock speeds, dividers, memory wait states, etc.) into PINS. I've worked out how to get most of the tweaks allowed by, e.g., MGATweak into the BIOS.

The writeup I've done is a little too bulky to post here, but I've put it on my (otherwise nonexistent) website at:
http://www.clark.net/~flatline/pinsprog.txt

I'm not trying to steal GBM's thunder here -- his tools and documentation have been invaluable to me in figuring this stuff out, but since he hasn't had a chance to update his website recently, I'm offering my own observations for those who are interested.

Andrew

[Maggi]

Excellent, Andrew !

Very much apreciated ...