No Post Screen

[Norman Chan]

Anyone can advise the following : -
With i740 graphic card - can see post screen and get into Window screen.

With G400 Max graphic card - cannot see post screen (Blank black) but after finished post , it can get into Window screen for normal operations.

[Kruzin]

Could be a bios corruption problem on your G400. D/L the Matrox recovery utility, and run it on your card....

[Peter Aragon]

Hi Norman

Perhaps the problem lies in the monitor.
The i740 cards display version info before the post screen.
The G400 cards don't show info.
So if you reboot or turn the PC on, the first thing shown is the post. Because the post is very fast these days, some monitors are too slow with changing to the proper resolution and that results in the lack of a post-screen.

You could press [BREAK] a second after you boot up the machine. That way the monitor can have time to display the post.

Another posibility is that your mainboard has a "blank logo". Intel boards have a logo embedded in the bios. In a setting in the bios you can turn this of. But the likelyhood that your mainboard has a blank logo is very small. You could test it by pressing [ESC], that will bypass a logo and show the post results.
I have experimented with logo's on Award bioses and now I'm able to change or add a logo to bios files.
Perhaps somebody knows a tool to change them in Phoenix bios files? I own an Asus laptop and want to change its startup logo

Perhaps you could try out an other monitor.

Good luck,
Peter Aragon

[Norman Chan]

Had tried using the Matrox recovery utility but still the same , no post screen.
I love this card but giving me all this unnecessary pain in the ass !
Anymore good suggestion ?

[Peter Aragon]

Hi Norman

Seriously, did you try the [BREAK] trick?
After you hear the beep-sound internal memory will be checked etc.
During this you can press [BREAK] this will be paused. What I suspect is that your monitor needs time to adjust. I've seen that on a number of systems. Most videocard-manufacturers let their cards display its information before the actual bios-postscreen. That would give the monitor enough time to adjust.
Did your monitoe display this "pre-post-screen" with your i740?

Try pressing [CTRL] during startup. Win98 would display startup-options you should be able to see on the monitor. Or press [DEL] (several times) after startup to go to the bios-settings of most motherboards. If you see that, there's nothing wrong with the Matrox. There is also nothing wrong with the monitor if so. My opinion is that the quality of a monitor does not depend much on the speed it adjusts to a resolution change

Good luck


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Peter Aragon
Matrox G200, Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 400, Asus P2B 1012, 128Mb, SBLive Full,
Hauppauge TV-card, HP8100i burner, Pioneer DVD.

[Norman Chan]

Hi ! Peter ,

Thanks for your replied.
Yes , I tried the "break" trick , still blank screen. No beep-sound. Why all of a sudden the monitor need time to adjust ? This sudden no POST screen happen few weeks back , all of a sudden until now. Before this happen , the POST screen can be see without any problem.
Yes , my monitor did display the POST screen clearly with the i740 card inserted.
I even tried a Gefore card too. After plug- in , power turn on - POST screen appear !
I tried putting my this G400 Max card into my friend system , same no POST screen but after POSTing before entering into the Window OS , it trigger auto-power shut-down. The whole system just cut-off power supplier. Any idea why ?

[mynx]

You have a corrupted bios.

[Norman Chan]

You mean even with a corrupted bios , the card still can function well ? Once into Window98 OS , the card function as per normal.
How do I overcome this corrupted bios ? I have tried the recovery bios but it is still the same.

[mynx]

Yes, it will still work in some modes. I have had this problem. I have an emergecy bios backup disk for each of my matrox boards. You may need the entire bios replaced.

[andrei]

Hi Peter,
do you by any chance happen to know where in the bios is the setting that disables the Intel logo ? I usually press [ESC] but I sure would like to get rid of it

[This message has been edited by andrei (edited 12 July 2000).]

[Norman Chan]

mynx ,

What do you mean replaced the entire bios ? By software or hardware ?
This is actually my third card (assemblied in Ireland) exchanged. The first two cards (assemblied in Thailand) was having total blank screens problem.

[Elie]

Take the G400 out of your machine and put it to another, if the second machine boots up then it's not the bios but could be the way it's seated.

Cheers,
Elie

[mynx]

Elie: He said in his earier post that he tried it in another system already.

Norman Chan: Did you make an emergency backup disk of your original bios? This would restore the entire bios back to its original state. If not, send me an email and I'll help you restore it.

[Rags]

Norman,

The fact that you have had three different cards get destroyed in your system tells me that there is something seriously wrong with your system. Whether it's a setup problem (such as improper AGP bus divider), or a hw fault (like a bad voltage regulator, there is something going on there.

Rags



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Partnership for an idiot free America

[Norman Chan]

Rags ,

It cannot be my system is having problem , I have been using my i740 graphic card on the same system more than a year before I switch to the G400 Max card.

mynx ,

Yes , please send to both my email as follow : -

normanps@pacific.net.sg
and
normanps@mbox2.singnet.com.sg

One more thing is that how do I re-install the bios because I tried using the recovery util. from Matrox web-site , once I actiavte it goes into blank black screen , nothing can be seen , as such nothing I can adjust.

Thanks in advance for your great help.