My G400 Max Sucks!!!

[Jake]

like Maggi said,

Does using your G400 cause the CPU MHz to drop ???

Have you tried simply substituting your G400 with another AGP 2X videocard (TNT2, G200, S3 Savage4 etc.)?

This (while it might seem odd) is one effective way to eliminate possible problem sources. If your comp still behaves strangely after the hardware swap, it can't be video related.

I have used this technique often, and it has proven to be more effective in the long run than bios and driver version juggling.

And I agree with Maggi an the point about CPU speed. I all my living days, I have never seen any other components than the motherboard interfering with CPU frequency.

Regards,

Jake


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Who is General Failiure and why is he reading my drive?
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MGA-G400DH 32Mb Mill., Abit BF6 mobo bios ver. RV, PIII-450@558, 128Mb PC-133 SDRAM, 17" Hitachi monitor, Plextor 8/20 CDR. Diamond MX300 A3D PCI soundcard, Adaptec AHA-2940U2W, Seagate Cheetah 9.1 GB LVD HDD, Quantum Fireball ST 6.4 GB UDMA33 HDD



[This message has been edited by Jake (edited 25 July 2000).]

[vhdlman]

Hi all

1st) Sorry for the multiple posts, my ISP was on the blink last night.

2nd) Motherboard is now reporting the correct CPU freq now that I have turned off Video RAM Cacheable.

3rd) The machine got worse yesterday, instead of hanging just before the backdrop load, it powered the machine off!!!. I got a util from Matrox "TweekUtil" and reduced the AGP to X1, no effect. I un-installed the 5.52 drivers and installed the PD6.00, no effect. I played with Video BIOS Shadow, Video BIOS Cacheable and Palette snooping, still no better. Turned off the Bus Mastering and the machine booted perfectly every time.

The Bus mastering on my card, JUST DON'T WORK!!!

I get a 25% drop in FPS with Unreal and Viper Racing with Bus Mastering off, but why should I have to run the card slower to get it to work.

I got my card when it 1st came out in the U.K. and think I have early Silicon.

Thanks

JayDee

The Monitor INF file comes from Compaq. P110
Yes, I did do a fresh install of Windows95OSR2, if fact, I have re-installed windoze 20-30 times now!

[Jake]

Hi!

Have you checked that an IRQ is assigned to your G400? If not check it in system properties.

Or you could just check you bios setup for an option to enable VGA IRQ assignment.

To use bus mastering on ANY motherboard an IRQ MUST be assigned to the G400.

Regards,

Jake

[vhdlman]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

In M/B BIOS, the 'Enable IRQ for VGA' is ON.
The G400 is on IRQ11 and nothing else is on 11.

JayDee

[merchant2112]

cpuld he be haveing a power supply problem, ie max uses more power ??

[ALBPM]

I just built a system at work last week with the BX2000 mobo and a PIII-600EB. It's running NT4.0 and no problems so far at 133MHz FSB.

The main disadvantage with this mobo is the lack of an AGP aperature setting in the BIOS.

Here's a link to my GH Thread, may be some more info that could help
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum3/HTML/002211.html

Paul

[cjolley]

"Motherboard is now reporting the correct CPU freq now that I have turned off Video RAM Cacheable"

This sounds very strange to me.
Check and see if you have EEC error checking turned on for your proc cache.
It should be set to ON. (I don't know that there is an option for that in your bios)
chuck

[Sisyfos]

cjolley, you cannot turn L2 ECC off on PIII.

Pentium III Processor Sspec Information

[Sisyfos]

Oups, I think I read my own link wrong.
It says you cannot disable L2 cache on PIII.
Hmmm....I thought you could, at least on Katmai.
Anyway, on Cuppermine it always report ECC even though I disable it in bios.
...wonder if this was even coherent.

[Alfie]

Must be those Via chipsets!

[Brian R.]

cjolly and Sisyfos:
http://support.intel.com/support/pro.../sspec/p3p.htm

See note #3 Sisyfos, you had it right the first time

[This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 28 July 2000).]

[Rags]

Originally posted by vhdlman:


The Monitor INF file comes from Compaq. P110
Yes, I did do a fresh install of Windows95OSR2, if fact, I have re-installed windoze 20-30 times now!

Since you are running win95, have you installed the USB upgrade???? You should if you want AGP cards to work properly.

Rags

[Rags]

I wonder if he ever got his problem fixed

[Wombat]

I thought this was a joke post at first.

1) It's a ChainTech. It's been a long time since they made decent motherboards.

2) How in the world are you going to blame a G400 for your CPU speed problems.

If you're a "VHDL man", then what do you design that you know this little about hardware?

[vhdlman]

Hi all

1) CPU reporting the wrong frequency might not have been related to Video RAM Cacheing, could have been when I turned off 'Spectrum Spread'.

2) Never got the bottom of the Matrox Bus mastering problem. Borrowed a G200 AGP from work and with the 5.52 drivers, had the same problem. (Bus mastering caused the machine to hang at 1st backdrop load). Borrowed a Voodoo5 5500 from a friend, and that worked fine, with bus mastering on. (Picture was not as good in my opinion!) I have a copy of Windows Millenium Final and will give that a go. Can anyone recommend a set of G400Max drivers to run with this new OS.

I don't know if I have the USB update for my OSR2.0, does anyone know where I can get the update? (-> OSR2.1???)

Thanks

JayDee

To Wombat
I used to design 400K to 800K gate telecoms ASICs for GPT (Coventry), hence the "handle". I now design PowerPC based Single board computers for industrial/military applications. PowerPC does not have AGP yet, although I have worked a bit on getting a Premedia II chip to DMA video frames from Host bridge controlled SDRAM to SGRAM, and had no problems with that. (VXWorks not Windoze, we dropped NT351 ages ago).

I have put a PCI Bus analyser on my BX2000+, but this does not show AGP cycles. I have used a Logic Analyser to check clocks, AGP Bus Request and Grant, and the AGP port Interrupt, but without the Matrox Source code, it is very dificult to figure out whats going on.

Many thanks for your concern.