Major problems in w2k after 5.51

[Dragonian]

I installed 5.51 a couple of days ago and since then I've been having major problems with video corruption and lockups with win2k. This system is normally rock solid stable.. up for weeks at a time. Now I can't go more than an hour without problems. I've since removed the 5.51 drivers w/ the uninstall prog. I installed 5.33 and 5.31 they all seem to produce the same effect.

I had no problems with this before the 5.51 drivers... it seems like something is not getting un-installed or got corrupted. Is there anyway short of starting from a clean w2k installation to fix this..??

I just put in a tnt2U and it appears to be working.. at least so far.

Any suggestions?

I've got a P3-450 with a G400 Max.

[Rags]

After you uninstall your Matrox drivers using add/remove programs in the control panel and have rebooted, search for these:
G400DHD.DLL
G400DHM.SYS
MGA64D.DLL
MGA64M.SYS
MGA64.INF
MGA64.PNF

Delete these files if they appear in any of your system folders, then install your 5.3 drivers and reboot.

Rags

[Paradox]

I've also had video corruption and lockups with win2k + 5.51 drivers. To solve all the lockups and corruption, I forced AGP 1x.

[Evenstar]

Strongly agree with those who report problems with 5.51. Have been using Matrox video cards for more than 5 years. This driver is BAD NEWS. Even while writing this post, video "disengaged". As soon as I finish this I will UNINSTALL and revert back to older & MORE RELIABLE DRIVER!

I have been reading this forum for about 2.5 years and have never saw the need to register on this board til now.

[dZeus]

no lockup problems here! when do you get this odd behaviour? is there any way for us to reproduce it?

[Dragonian]

When do i get this behavior?? by doing anything. Using the computer to do anything for more than 30 mins it will either lockup or severe display problems will occur. Display problems include unreadale text, various colored lines on the screen.

I've been trying to remove the new drivers and use old ones, but even with that i have encountered problems. I was able to disable windows file protection so that i could be sure that *g400* and *mga* were removed. I just tried installing the 5.33 drivers.. but i seem to be still having the same problems. I'm not sure what could be lingering on my system at this point.

I have definely determined it has something to do with the video drivers, since running the card with no drivers (at 640x480) or replacing it with a tnt2 work fine.

any more suggestions... I'm nearing the point where I'm going to start from scratch.. but am reluctant to do this, since I have a lot of stuff installed, and otherwise the system is running so good.

[This message has been edited by Dragonian (edited 12 March 2001).]

[Rags]

Did you remove the drivers using add/remove programs in the control panel? You should, and when you get done, reboot into safemode and remove any display adapters listed there. They reboot in normal mode, cancel when prompted for video drivers, then install using the setup in the drivers.

I have been running these drivers for over a week without a reboot, no crashes at all, and I hit my machine pretty hard video wise.

Rags

[Inray]

The same wnd worst problems here. I've used all previous G400 Win2K drivers with almost no stability problems but the latest 5.51 are really bad news.
Even when use them without second monitor support i have serious delay problems accessing monitor settings, PD defaults to wrong refresh rates and generally speaking 5.51 is garbage.
Today i removed them from all computers in our company and i reinstalled trusty 5.33.xxx

[LuckyG]

No problems here. (Well, a minor one getting the Roxio Easy CD Creator 4.0 Project Selector splash screen to display completely). If anything, my computer seems MORE stable with the new drivers. I used pduninst.exe to clear out my previous install, then RegClean and Norton WinDoctor to remove the detritus before installing the new drivers.

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ABIT BP6, Dual Celeron 466's @525Mhz
single stick of Kingston ECC registered PC100 256MB RAM
Dual IBM C-71 17" monitors
Matrox G400Max
Seagate Cheetah 10k 9.1gb SCSI U2W drive
Adaptec 2940U2W SCSI Controller
Maxtor 20 GB 7.2k UDMA66 IDE drive
Plextor Ultraplex 40max SCSI CD player
Seagate Scorpion SCSI DAT drive
Creative SB AWE32 / LinkSys NIC / 300 watt power supply
12 fans (including three stacked Nidek Blowers) / assorted external SCSI stuff.........
Win2K Final Release/WinNT4 SP6/WIN98/DOS 6.22