G400MAX card bad?

[Clevor]

I got a used G400MAX card here in Japan for $80 U.S. I knew something was up when I went home and noticed they didn't give me a receipt. They were trying to tell me something at the counter but I can't understand Japanese.

The card seems to run 2D fine, but whenever I try to run a 3D game or demo, the screen locks up with the sound repeating, or I get a garbled screen with different colors and banding. I have to do a hot reboot to regain control of the computer. This happens within 15 seconds of starting a game. The card looks bone stock and I don't see any components broken off, but a lot of the inductors and stuff are real tiny. I've tried running QuakeIII, UT, and 3DMark2000, but it won't get past 15 seconds into it.

I got a G400 32 DH that runs fine in the same system, so looks like it's the card. I am running the latest 6.51 drivers and DirectX 8.0

Any suggestions?

Also, what is Matrox's warrantee, anyway? Everything on the box says 1999. Will they honor a transfer of ownership?

[Wombat]

Matrox should help you out. The card has a 3 year warranty, and no G400's are that old yet.

[Bohrn]

can ya try it in another machine??

[Clevor]

It's OK after all.

Well I lucked out.

I use the Matrox Tweak Utility and forced 1X AGP on the card (it's an older 2X AGP version), and I couldn't believe it, it runs all the 3D stuff no problem. Got a 3164 on 3DMark2000 and 1508 on 3DMark2001, not bad for an 800 Thunderbird.

The card is a bit too slow to run QuakeIII and Serious Sam smoothly, though, even at 800x600x16 bit.

But I'm pretty happy with the card since for $80, the 2D is superb of course, and it came with the games/software CD, VGA cable, manual, and (beat-up) box. I like those 5 ns ram chips!

I'm real surprised it plays Unreal Tournament so smoothly, no problems whatsoever. Color is very vibrant and bright. I might play the game on this card rather than the Voodoo5 in my PCI slot.