New G450 gives garbage on boot

[ewindisch]

I just purchased a (supposedly) new G450 on ebay...

It gives garbage on the primary display, just random colors and noise; although it does appear to be TRYING to display the proper information, it just doesn't do it so well.

I am also going to ask on the matrox technical support forums; if this isn't resolved I'll have to assume it is DOA

[Greebe]

Make sure it is completely in the slot... push real hard!

[Rags]

Should be no need to go the Matrox tech support forums, they will be closed until the new year anyhow.


We can help you here probably, what are your system details? Greebe can get you going

Rags

[ewindisch]

Well..

I've tried it in 2 motherboards so far, and yes.. I pushed it in as far as it would go

One is an Asus, and the other Intel. The Asus has the AGP clk setting set to 1, I also tried 4. I haven't tried modifying (or checking) what the setting is on the Intel board; but I have used AGP video cards in both boards in the past.

It does display the bios/post information to the screen, just (very) illegably and with many extra artifacts; after it posts it gets even worse, turning into complete and utter garbage.

Mostly useless information:
The Intel board hosts a PentiumII, and the Asus board hosts dual pentium III processors. I have also sucessfully used a Matrox Mystique in the Intel board (haven't tried the Asus)

[Maggi]

maybe a corrupted BIOS ... wasn'T there a recovery util on Matrox ftp ?

[ewindisch]

If that is the case..

If that is the case, I would have to boot with a pci card into my OS and then install a new Bios onto the G450..

So can I do that from linux, or am I knee deep in the dead? (sorry, couldn't resist a doom reference)

[Maggi]

hmm, there's a way to create a recovery boot disk form wondos, but I don't know how to do it form DOS and I'm too lazy to rtfm ... ;

[Dilitante1]

Linux?.....................(shakes head)

Unfortunately, you'll need a Windoze box and this util setup254.exe from here:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/bios/home.cfm

once unpacked run the makedisk file to make a bootable BIOS disk.....


there isnt (that I am aware of) Linux equivalant unfortunately for ya...


-Dil

[ewindisch]

Ok..

Yeah, I found the windows executable on the webpage today. Major inconvience. I assume Win95a doesn't support AGP, as AGP wasn't implimented in motherboards until at least Q4-1996 or Q1-1997

Sounds like this is going to be a fun night.

[Greebe]

It wasn't until Win95c that AGP support was added to the OS... or with the addition of the USB patch provided by M$ that this it was.

How about posting some system specs cause this sounds like there could possibly be other issues involved (or at least we can put to rest

[Greebe]

You may also want to have a look see here...

http://grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/matrox/

-----------------------------------
(Merry Christmas Greg!

[ewindisch]

Thanks for the URL, very helpful.

I found an MS-Dos disk image which I can mount in linux and create a nice bootable BIOS recovery disk with

The only problem I have is finding out which .bin file I need for my G450; that site above doesn't have the G450 in its bios/bin table.

Seemingly useful information from the card:

Matrox 975-0201 REV A
Copyright 2000

G45+ MDHA32D/DEL 206

[gbm]

Use MXINFO from my website and look for strange values in parameter dump. In particular observe the reported oscillator frequency. Should be 27 MHz. 14.something means error.

[ewindisch]

interesting..

Everything looked ok.
vendor id= 102b
device-id = 0525
subsys_vid = 102b
subsys id = 0641

the only strange thing is that device_id 0525 is G400 Toucan, when this is a G450; I don't know if that would make a difference.

The OSC reported as 27mhz,
PINS reported as 5.2

[ewindisch]

MXInfo Log