Bad Card.

[Giles]

I have a bad Matrox Millenium G200 8MB purchased about 1 year ago. When it cranks up there is no display on the screen. It's black. When it gets to Windows (graphic) it works about 10-15% of the time. The card is just bad.

I went to the Matrox site to get an RMA to return the card for another one and all I can do is go around in circles on their site.

Just how do your return a bad Matrox card for replacement. It certainly saves them a lot of money but isn't very good for their customers.

[Kruzin]

Sounds like a classic case of corrupt video bios. Try going to the Matrox TS utilities page, and grab their "recover" utility, and run it on your card. Hopefully this will fix your problem...

http://www.matrox.com/mga/drivers/files/ftp_util.htm

[Giles]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Nevertheless, how do you return a Matrox card for repair or replacement. There must be a way to get an RMA somewhere.

[Greebe]

Have you tried Matrox.com or asked questions on this over at forum.matrox.com(closed after business hours)?

[Brian R.]

Back when there was no online forum, you had to call tech support and convince them the card was defective. They then referred you to the RMA people. The current system may have other options. You can be certain you still have to convince tech support the card's faulty.

[Giles]

In my original post I mentioned that on crank up the screen is black. I downloaded the recover utility and set it up to run automatically with an autoexec.bat. However, nothing happens. Evidently you have to interact with the program with instructions on the screen. If there is no screen what do you do. Does anyone know the sequence of this program so I can blind myself through it.

And as far as returning a bad card to Matrox, it seems that when you buy one that's it. You either use it or throw it away. Matrox seems to have gone to a very lot of trouble to make it extraordinarily hard to return a bad card for replacement.

[Greebe]

Now what exactly what got you to think that?
If you want to call them fine, it's about $1.00 per minute from the US!... so they implemented other options... via email, their new forums... just to make it easier for us all. Whining to us and not directly relaying this info to Matrox is a waste of time.

[Kruzin]

1- Remove G200
2- put in PCI vid card
3- connect monitor to PCI card
4- set mobo bios to boot PCI first
5- put G200 in, leaving monitor hooked to PCI card
6- boot up with the recovery disk, and recover G200 BIOS
7- remove PCI card, hook monitor to G200
8- set mobo bios to boot AGP first

If this doesn't work, contact Matrox tech support by e-mail or in their forums. They will respond.

[xortam]

Giles, I E-mailed tech support to resolve a bad card problem (G400 Max) about 10 months ago. After a few E-Mails exchanged, I was directed to a customer service number where I arranged for a cross-shipment of my replacement Max. No problem.

[Giles]

Sorry guys if it sounded like I was whining.

I thought it was a legitimate question. I have purchased over 250 G200s and over 135 G400s. I have a bad card and was trying to get it replaced. I spent a lot time emailing anybody I could at Matrox from tech to sales to corporate and the only thing I got back was automated responses. Any way you look at it that ain't good and I might mention that all my emails were first rate, not ratty. You don't get responses with ratty emails. By the way, I have placed 6 calls to Matrox and never got anything but switching around and when calling I am the absolute gentlemen.

Xortam, thanks for the comment. That's exactly what I asked for. Could you tell me the email address you used and thank you very much. I sincerely appreciate it.

[xortam]

Matrox support procedures have changed since I contacted them last September. It appears my first contact with them was via a web form which got an automatic response via "Matrox Graphics Inc. Technical Support" graphics.techsupport@Matrox.COM. A TSE followed up with an E-Mail and we continued to communicate through his address Matrox Graphics - Daniel Lawrence dlawrenc@Matrox.COM.

I'd recommend you exactly follow their current procedures. If you did, you would have answered "No" to the FAQ feedback and had been directed to the contact page which provides the On-line Technical Support Request Form.

If you've already done that and still haven't gotten a response from a TSE, try posting a thread in this forum with "Attn Haig" in the subject (he's the TS manager). You should also be able to get his attention through the Matrox forums.

[Giles]

Thank you Mr. Xortam, first rate answer from a first rate gentlemen.

The graphics.techsupport@Matrox.COM returns an unable to deliver message. I do admit that I did not follow through in filling out the form because with a black screen I could not supply the great majority of the information requested and my experience with this boilerplate form is that it does not proceed unless the information is supplied.

Had enough, time to throw this card away and take the loss. This is a very good forum and extremely useful. Thank you all for the comments, even the rough ones. They all help. Have a great summer!

[Kruzin]

Did you try my above suggestion with the PCI card to recover the BIOS?
This has worked many time in the past.

[Rags]

Why be so stubborn? Try what Kruzin has suggested, I am more than confident he has a VERY GOOD SUGGESTION!

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[Giles]

Sorry, forgot to mention that. I did try that sequence (thank you very much for the help) and was able to run the program. The card is just bad. More thank likely it is a cracked land-line or a solder splash below one of the surface mounts that I can't get out.

I don't think I've been stubborn at all. If you'll read the posts I think you'll see that I've taken every step within reason to get this card replaced. I am not a repair shop. This is a Matrox product and it is their responsibility to replace one which is bad within the guarantee period. I've wasted enough money in hours spent trying to resolve this problem to buy a number of these cards. Evidently that is their current strategy and of course it works very well.