4th Time Spoiled - G400 Max

[Norman Chan]

Ok , but I think will wait for at least 3 weeks before can get the 5th replacement card. By the way , how do you do the modification ? Able to educate me ? Thanks in advance for your great help.
I really like this G400 Max card but with all this problem , I'm quite disappointed and really hope the problem will be resolve.

[The PIT]

Different boards have different tolorances. Four different cards suggest a motherboard problem. However are you overclocking as pushing on this front can kill cards as well.

[The PIT]

looking back you other cards died under 98 and your overclocking. Run everything at normal speeds and see what happens.

[pchoi]

Norman, I suggest you don't overclock if you are. If you increase your FSB speeds your AGP bus speed will go up as well, and I'm not sure the G400's like that (and they don't like much).

Hey, I had a friend who lent me his G400 32MB DH to see if it worked under my computer.

My problem at the time was that I couldn't use the G400 with any degree of stability without bus mastering disabled and forcing AGP 1x. I had the same problems with my friend's card, but he failed to inform me that he ran it under the same coniditions. So, no luck. Ugh... what do you do then...



[This message has been edited by pchoi (edited 02 October 2000).]

[Brian R.]

The G400 undoubtably has different power requirements and voltage tolerances than the other cards. Both are affected by ps and mb. Don't go making assumptions without data.

[pchoi]

Don't quote me on this (and yes I *have* looked around...) but from memory I believe the G400 32MB DH consumes 8W of power where the i740 and GF2 MX consume about 4W of power. If you have a MAX version, it'd be safe to assume that it would require an additional ~2W of power. Now that's certainly not a big difference but if you have a lot of devices leeching your PS the G400 would definitely choke.

Good thing you don't have a Voodoo 6000 - I believe that thing draws 36W! Voodoo Volts indeed...

[Ashley]

I took you literally when you said your card ran fine under Win98, and was zapped only when you installed the Win2K driver. If that is really the case, then its not the hardware; its the software.

One thing that is different in the Win2K drivers is Matrox's "BiosGuard" - next time (if there is a next time) just open the Matrox driver install.inf file and comment out all references to MGABG before you install.

[Brian R.]

Ashely - You may be right. I got caught up in his discussion of what other cards worked and didn't see the os change. The question I have is: what is different about his system? It's not often computers of any sort crap cards repeatedly.

[This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 02 October 2000).]

[Norman Chan]

I'm using a Celeron 300a oc to 400 mhz , as such the fsb is only 100mhz. You mean you want me to clock back to 66mhz for the fsb and try again ?
I'm thinking of upgrading to an AMD TB 800 mhz and put the fsb at 133 mhz by year end. Do you think the G400 Max will have any problem with this setting ?

[Greebe]

No problem what so ever if setup properly.

BTW how do you resolve a 50% boost at 300 to equal 400mHz? that's 450. My G400Max works fine at 103mHz fsb on a celeron 300a OC'd to 464mHz. The reason they're suggesting to unOC it is due to system instabilities that can be introduced. Lower it will determine wether or not the OCing was the problem.

[Ashley]

Brian - It certainly an unusual problem and could very well be a hardware problem, but then someone would have to explain why, on the same hardware, the G400 worked with Win98, and why Win2K worked with a GF2MX.

The first few answers to Norman's problem that appeared just jumped over these anomolies and advised changing the motherboard (and/or power supply). I am probably in a minority here, but the motherboard would be the *last* thing I would change in a otherwise working system, certainly not the first. And if one graphics card worked, and another didn't, it would be the graphics card that got tossed, not the rest of the system...

[The PIT]

Ashley if scout back to his orginal post cards were blowing up under 98. This suggests that the latest card had a bit more tolorance and finally threw the towel in. The fact that it was win2k maybe a coincidence.
I wonder if the dividers on the agp are set to 1/1 and not 2/3. I haven't checked this in the orginal post.

[Brian R.]

Re-reading the first post now makes it indeed sound like the G400s did not work under either os. My opinion is back to it being a HW problem.

As far as changing the mb vs changing the video card goes, I find the video card to be a much more important and personal variable in my computer. Change the mb for an equivalent one and nothing appears different (albeit it is more work up front). Changing the video card can significantly degrade your performance in many ways.

Also, the standard MBs are significantly cheaper than the good video cards nowadays. All mine cost around $130. My video card cost $350. I would fight harder to keep the video card than the mb.

[This message has been edited by Brian R. (edited 03 October 2000).]

[DuRaNgO]

I think Pit has it, please check what your agp ratio is set to
jim

[Brian R.]

Hard to believe any of the cards could live with 100MHz AGP bus.