Dead G400s

[kimble1]

Have had two dead G400s so far. The Motherboard is an Abit Bp6 w/Dual Celeron 366's. The FSB(Front Side Bus) is set to 100mhz. The AGP/CPU setting was 2/3 for the first card, which lasted appx 5mo. The AGP/CPU was 1/1 for the second which lasted 2 days. What gives? This card should be running easily at 100mhz. Any Ideas would be appreciated. I don't want this card if it can't run at this speed. I don't want to waste any more cards/money if I have a problem.

[Kruzin]

The cards will run a 100fsb at 2/3 no problem. That is spec. Running at 1/1 was overclocking the bus by 50%.

Go to Matrox's web site, get the bios recovery util, and try to bring those cards back to life.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/drivers/files/ftp_util.htm

[Rick]

I had my G400 runningn on a 100 AGP bus for about a month. Never had any trouble. Since I got my new board I can set FSB speeds in Bios so I don't use SoftFSB anymore and the BIOS adjusts the AGP multiplier correctly.

[kimble1]

Can't boot machine w/dead card. Have the bios utility. The first card was 100, 2/3 so it shouldn't have died...Am setting fsb in mb bios, flashed new card to 1.09 bios from Matrox's site. What I really want to know is does this sound like a voltage problem, a setting issue or what?

[Kruzin]

To recover a dead card:
1. put in a PCI card
2. set your mobo bios video boot order to PCI first
3. put in the G400, leaving the monitor hooked to the PCI card
4. boot into DOS mode, and run the recover utility.

After the card's bios is recovered,remove the PCI card, plug the monitor into the G400, reset the mobo bios to boot AGP first, and off you go (hopefully).

It could possibly be a voltage issue. If your powersupply is fluctuating, or running weak, it could cause the card's bios to corrupt. This has been a fairly common problem, and is the main reason Matrox released the recover utility...

[kimble1]

Thanks big gobs! I haven't tried it yet, but just having an idea is better than nothing. I'll let you know if it works. I'm half way there, this is the machine on pci...

[kimble1]

THANK YOU!! My matrox lives. The tech support people at Matrox responded with the same advice as Kruzin, and offered to RMA the card if it could not be revived. This was, in my opinion, unnecessary and extremely appreciated. There may be better video cards,(I don't think so..but maybe), but there is not a better company. If service is the way to keep customers, they've kept this one.

[Maggi]

Welcome to the club ...