BluesScreen on Win2k and WinXP with G400

[xortam]

Those people still getting the ACCESS_VIOLATION exception -- have you tried running in VGA mode? I know its painful to run in that mode for long (I've gone through several days of it myself) but it may help in isolating the problem. The alternative is to get hold of another graphics card to test with: Perhaps you can pick up a "loaner".

[MK]

Yeah, it does not seem to be related to any program. It happened while surfing with internet explorer or writing mails with PMail V3.12, but it even happened on the desktop without any program running.

MK

[xortam]

... and this was in VGA mode MK? Make sure you've also put your HW back at spec including your Celeron II. You'll also want to yank all but the essential HW to help isolate the problem. A fresh install of the OS and trying various OSes will also help in testing HW. I use a separate removable boot disk so this is very easy for me to try.

P.S. An access violation can be caused by many different things: bad memory, errant SW accessing wrong memory locations (this may be caused by other SW corrupting the "scapegoat" code), or bad HW accessing wrong memory locations (protected or non-existent memory locations).

[MK]

Hello xortam.

this happened in SVGA mode (1024 x 768 x 32 Bit). I only use that resolution, because I usually work a lot on my computer (studies ). Running the sys in 640 x 480 x 16 is not an opportunity, because I would have to do that for 2 weeks + to make sure the fault does not reappear.

The combination of hardware I use proofed to work stable already, because I use some of the pieces for approximately 3 years and I tested the actual system on Win98. There I did not get the mentioned BSOD. The RAM is tested too, as I wrote in the message above.

What I already tried was to put the Celery back on its stock speed, but that did not help too. The fault I received once in a week was the same: KMODE_EXEPTION_NOT_HANDLED.

Concerning the OS: I was reading several newsgroups carefully before I started to install Win2k. And yes it was a clean installation from scratch, and a proper one. Whenever I did a mistake I started again from scratch (I am a perfectionist concerning that, because I have to *work* with the system every day).

I have checked the BIOS for any settings that is not suitable. But nothings is maxed out and everything is done to ensure *stable* operation. I do not use aggressive timings or something like that ...

Nevertheless, thanks again for your perseverance to help me with my problem. Is there anything I can do about the drivers ? What does the G400DHD.dll btw. ?

MK

[xortam]

The G400DHD.dll is a driver for your Matrox G400 graphics card. This is the code that was executing at the time the exception was caught. The KMODE_EXEPTION_NOT_HANDLED message means that no SW was installed to handle the specific exception that occurred. Their are many types of exceptions and the message enumerates which one. The first parameter in the stop message, in your case 0x0000005, identifies the type of exception, which the ntstatus.h header file defines as STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION. An access violation is as I described in my previous message. I asked you to run in VGA mode because then you would not be using the G400 drivers and perhaps the error would occur in some other code in which case we can rule out the G400 as the cause. You can also try other versions of the G400 drivers or a different graphics card and drivers entirely. HW can go bad over time or be stressed in a different way with different OSes and/or applications. Just because it worked fine in Win98 doesn't mean that you don't have a HW problem. I didn't know about your other timings but was concerned that you had o/c'ed your CPU. You need to get everything to spec and simplify/minimize your system when troubleshooting such problems.

[MK]

I see. I will let you know, if there are any new findings.

MK

[sgopal2]

G400 problems

Try the following:

Installing the Win2K AGP Registry patch for Matrox cards
Try installing the Matrox drivers AFTER the chipset drivers

I have an MSI K7PRO and am having the same darn problems. I can't figure it out either. I am thinking of getting a new motherboard with different chipset so I can use my Matrox G400 Millenium.

Hope this helps