Marvel G200 + Athlon + Abit KT7A + Win98 = crash in Direct3D and Video

[ppravier]

Hi,

I can't run my Marvel G200 in Direct3D, and I also suffer from crashes with the Video driver.
For the direct3D problem, whenever I try to use any Direct-3D application, a blue screen (Fatal Error 0E) appears. The only thing I can do is reboot. It happens every time under these circumstances, whatever Direct-3D application I try.

I have an Athlon 1GHz on an Abit KT7A motherboard. I run Win 98 and uses the 5.55 drivers 5.55 + Video tools 1.54

[J1NG]

Hey there,

I just got myself out of a similar fix myself about 10 minutes ago (but mine was PIII with Via Apollo266 and Marvel G200 PCI) Try the following, they may solve your problem, if not, please post more info on your system. IRQ list and hardware on your PC.

Is there any card in the PCI slot directly below your AGP port? If there is, move it to another slot instead.

Install the AMD patches they've released. This may help solve the problem.

Make sure that all the "Shadow" options in the BIOS are turned OFF.

Try and move your G200 Marvel's IRQ to one where it is not sharing with another device like USB.

Try swapping the cards inside around. Sometimes, it's bad connections, or the way your BIOS handles the IRQs to each card device (and Matrox cards seem to enjoy 9 to 11 only)

If you can, test your RAM in another machine. (Not likely the cause, but test them just in case) 0E errors are apparently connected with memory (Though I've had 0E errors for months, and it's got aboslutely NOTHING to do with my RAM)

One last thing to do, is to remove all your cards and leave only the Matrox G200 inside. If it still causes problems, it's your G200 and the chipset or drivers that's got the problems. If it's fine, add each card in one at a time till you find the error. This 80% of the time tells you what is causing the problem.

If none of those, work post your machine's IRQ and hardware details here.

J1NG

[ppravier]

Hello,

Thnak for your answer. I'll try that.
I can already say that my Matrox card shares the IRQ 11 with my SCSI card. It was already the case in my previous system, so I thought that it was not a problem.
I will try your ideas.
Where is the AMD patch from MAtrox ? I searched it but couldn't find it.

[ppravier]

Hi all,

I had installed the Via drivers already (I did that while reinstalling Windows).
I tried to remove my SCSI card (who was sharing the IRQ 11 with the MArvel).
After that the Marvel had its own IRQ, not shared.
But it didn't change the problem at all. Every time I try to run a Direct-3D application with the MArvel G200, a blue screen appears quickly, with a 0E fatal error. This is a 100% systematic error.

[J1NG]

Well, just to make sure, are you overclocking your machine?

Post your IRQ list and what hardware you've got in the machine then, since none of the previous pointers seemed to work

J1NG

[J1NG]

Right, forgot something else. Have you tried using later or earlier drivers?

When I finally got my months worth of problems sorted out last night, I ended up using the 5.25 PD drivers (VT 1.5x) instead. So you might have a bash with some of the older drivers too.

But post the IRQ list and Hardware just the same if changing the drivers don't work.

J1NG

[J1NG]

D'oh!!

Did I say AMD? I meant VIA. (Don't know what I was thinking at the time, it was 00:33 at the time though ) ) Go to VIA's website www.viahardware.com and find their VIA 4in1 drivers and install them. (Assuming you haven't already done so) We'll wait to see what's happens after you've tried some of the possible solutions above before we go further.

J1NG

[ppravier]

Via has published a new version of their 4-in-1 drivers (v4.31). I was using the previous one, 4.29, until yesterday evening.
I changed the drivers, and now the Marvel G200 accepts to do Direct-3D .

However, something strange happened as well : during the first reboot with these new drivers, one of my two 3dfx was re-detected by Windows ! I didn't know that is was that (windows called it a Multimedia device) and therefore I couldn't find the driver. Later on, after finishing booting I saw, in the device manager, that one of my two 3dfx cards was in the exclamation point category instead of being in the Multimedia stuff.
So, when I tested the Marvel G200 with 3dMark 99, I also tested my 3dfxs just after. With the 3dfx It was working, but with strange colours. I don't know if only one card, or the two, was used because I had no time to test anymore....
The next time I will install the 3dfx drivers again to have my two cards (in SLI) correctly recognized, and to see if everything works.

[ppravier]

Well, after the impossibility for my 2nd 3dfx card to be recognized by Windows, I decided to go to the bios and to reinitialize the PNP ESCD memory.
After having done that, Windows re-probed most of the PNP cards and recognized my 3dfx2 correctly.
Unfortunately, the direct-3D part of the MArvel G200 doesn't work anymore.
So, the new Via drivers didn't solve the issue.
It looks like more a Bios issue, causing maybe some memory ovelapping between the two card. Windows doesn't report any conflict, but who knows....

The bios has always the ACPI on, I have been told that it can be the root of some problems. In the bios, I have the "PNP OS" switch set to YES, which seems to make sense at first since I use Win98. However, when the computer runs in ACPI mode, it had been suggested to turn this feature off !!

Does someone know something about this mess ?

[The PIT]

Welcome to the mess called Via or perhaps Abit and Via. Plug and play should be turned off when using acpi.
What are you full specs and what cards are in what slots?