3d lockups

[Sarojin]

When I run games such as Quake, UT, and Fallout, my system will randomly hard lock.

I had previously done some overclocking, but had decided to keep it at it's defaults (performance gains were minimal).

System:
Matrox Millenium G400 Vanilla
Intel Celeron 566@850(1.6V)
ABIT BH6 1.1
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Value!
PE Logic PEL-FAST-PCI SCSI Controller
Pioneer DVD-303S
Ricoh 7060S
192MB PC133 SDRAM (128MB Micron; 64MB Generic)
RealTek RTL8029(AS) PCI NIC

I assume the CPU being overclocked causes no problems in this case, as I can run the d.net client continuously without problems (Keeps CPU at %100)

I've tried various BIOS options, and have reformatted/reinstalled Windows(98SE), to no avail.

[Mark F]

Which Matrox and CL drivers are you useing?

Also can you post your IRQ table.
Might give us someting to work with.

Mark F.

------------------
OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a DVD...
and burped out a movie

[paulcs]

I wouldn't be to sure about the overclock not causing the lockups. I've seen math intensive clients run fine on overclocked CPU's, only to have 3D games lock up on me until I upped the voltage abit. You're at 1.6 volts, which is pretty low considering the speed you're running that Celeron. You might want to up it a bit, just to make sure.

If you think it's your G400, try this:

The G400, and most of the new AGP cards, do not like to share IRQ's. They also prefer high priority IRQ's like 9, 10, or 11. Make sure the G400 is sharing only with IRQ Holder for PCI Steering.

Make sure your G400 is all the way in the AGP slot and properly aligned. This can be fairly deceptive, as a slight misalignment can cause problems. Reinsert it and give it a good push. Make sure the back of the board doesn't lift out when you screw the board in.

Open your AGP aperture to 256 as Matrox (and NVIDIA) recommend. You could try 128 as well.

Make sure all video shadowing and snooping are disabled in the BIOS.

What version of PowerDesk are you using?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Sarojin]

Hrrm, it seems the solution was disabling Video BIOS Caching and Video RAM Caching; Lockups gone, but Quake 1 now has pretty coloured lights on the walls. Groovy.

[paulcs]

What version of PowerDesk are you using? Also, are you using TurboGL? I'm sure we can fix this.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Sarojin]

Seems I spoke too soon of the problem being fixed; game still lock up (even at 566/1.5).

Using PowerDesk 5.52.015, although I have tried the latest beta 6.x version. Also I am not using TurboGL.

The g400 is on IRQ 3, and Windows won't allow me to change that, or any other resource value of the card.

I tried reinserting the video card, and that didn't help either.

Hrm.

[Sarojin]

hrm, Quake 3 hard locked this time, but instead of just showing the same screen, it showed it all corrupted (all sorts of vert and hori lines all over the screen in various colours, etc)

[xortam]

Sarojin, You need to assign an IRQ for the G400 in your MB BIOS (9 or above). If windows still insists on messing with it, disable PnP in your BIOS.

[paulcs]

Xortam is right.

As I mentioned before, you want the G400 to be on a high priority IRQ: 9, 10, or 11. IRQ 3, I believe, is a low priority IRQ and better suited for COM ports and modems. This is a very common problem with newer AGP boards.

In addition, your G400 shouldn't be sharing with anything other than IRQ Holder for PCI Steering. Make sure you do not have a busmastering device in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot. PCI 1 typically shares an IRQ with with the AGP slot.

If you get into trouble, cut, paste, and post your IRQ list here, and we'll give you a hand.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Sarojin]

How do you go about changing what IRQ the card uses? The only thing where I could change an IRQ was PIRQ_??, and there's ~5 of those, so I wouldn't know which is the VGA card.


Here's my current IRQ table

0 System timer
1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
3 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
3 Realtek RTL8029(AS) PCI Ethernet NIC
3 Matrox Millennium G400 - English
4 Communications Port (COM1)
5 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
5 PE Logic PEL-PCI-FAST SCSI controller
5 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 Printer Port (LPT1)
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 (free)
10 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
10 Creative SB Live! Value
11 Communications Port (COM2)
12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller

[Bixler]

Wow! Now that's an IRQ config that I've never seen before! An AGP Vid Card AND a Nic on IRQ 3??

Delete Com2 from your system, Assign IRQ to VGA (In place of Com2 on 11 if possible) and see if you can get your card alone on 11 as Paul stated above.

When you've done this, you can let com2 occupy IRQ 3 perhaps.

You may need to remove the nic temporarly (physically remove the card) to get all of this sorted out.

Good Luck!

[HedsSpaz]

Paul, Xortam, and Mark I agree with you completely, but I don't think you were quite clear on a couple of points.

Sarojin, somewhere in your BIOS there should be a setting called "Assign IRQ to VGA" or something similar, it must be set to yes. Also, if you are not using them, disable any serial or parallel ports, any onboard modems or sound cards, and make sure that PnP OS is set to no. First video init should be set to AGP.

Also, Paul mentioned the busmastering cards in PCI slot1. If you have a card there you might want to just go ahead and move it to a different slot anyway.

On another note, Bixler has a very good point as well, and it may be that you need to remove more than just the NIC. If worst comes to worst, remove everything except the Vid card and go through the standard driver update procedure.(remove old drivers, reboot, detect std vga adapter, reboot, install new drivers) Then start adding the other cards back in one by one.

Good luck

Ian

[Sarojin]

I got the G400 to IRQ 15, which is only shared with "IRQ Holder For PCI Steering", but the lockups are there still (Tested UT[takes a bit of time] and Quake 3[almost instant]).

[http://members.xoom.com/sklm/wtf.zip]
here's a shot of the glitches Quake produces, but seems to be stable.

I also noticed my framerate in UT had dropped a good 20fps. Would that be to do with the disabling of all the video related caching?

[ALBPM]

Sarojin, have you tried increasing the voltage for your Celeron to 1.65 or 1.70v???

Paul

[Sarojin]

Yes I have, and I still noticed some lockups when running at the default fsb