P128 Retail DOA?

[Jupp]

Hi guys,

received my retail P today and inserted it into my box.
Reassembled everything, and powered the machine on.

The machine posts and beeps just once as usual. I see the post
display on my primary monitor for about 10 seconds, then my
monitor goes into power save mode and the machine does not boot.

Reinserted the Max, the post screen shows wrong CPU and Ram speed
(2x500Mhz instead of 2x1000Mhz for the CPU and 200Mhz instead of
266Mhz for the Ram). After hitting the reset button the post values
are ok again and the comp starts booting into Windows 2000.

System specs:
Asus CUV-266D Bios 1003
2xPentium III 1000Mhz
512 MB DDR
AHA29160
IBM DDYS-T36950N
IBM DDRS-34560
Pioneer DVD305
Yamaha CRW2200S
3Com 3C905C-TX
Santa Cruz
WinTV
P128 / G400Max
300W PSU

I inserted the P into another box (350 Mhz PII, Intel BX) and I get
exactly the same behaviour (10 seconds post display, no boot) except
the mess with the CPU/Ram timings.

Is this P DOA?
Any suggestions?

R.

[zandor]

It could be DOA. Somebody's gotta get a dud.
Other than that, PSU Maybe? I've got a similar setup-
Asus CUV4X-D, 512MB SDRAM, 2x PIII-1000, 3 scsi drives, 3c905, CD & CD-R, etc. on a 400W PSU. I've also got 4 case fans... My PSU's maxed out. I have a 550W on order. It should be here on monday.

It's occasionally pops up a warning when I fire up the machine & tells me to go check the power section in the bios. Mine runs ok though, and the Asus hardware monitor hasn't sounded any alarms in windows yet.
At any rate, I've got a 550W PSU on order now. I'd like to add a 2nd graphics card (so I can run my 3rd screen at an independant res when I'm not playing games), and it always throws up warning messages w/ the 2nd card in there.

I'd try unplugging everything you can (dvd, 2nd disk, pop out the spare cards) and just see if you can say, get into the bios.
You could let it boot like that, though windows will throw a fit of course.

[Jupp]

Hi there,

I can get into the bios and fiddle around there for checking the values. Then suddenly the monitor switches off. I guess the machine hasn't crashed; I just can't see a thing.

On every subsequent reboot after this (even after 2 minutes powered off) I get no display and on the first reboot after swapping the P with my Max all my system timings are messed up.

To put this in a nutshell, after inserting the P I get about 10-15 seconds of display where everything looks ok. After this, there is nothing until I swap the graphic cards.

I noticed that my P gets very hot while running. That is, when I touch the pcb on the right side (opposite to the monitor connectors) I can feel how hot it is. The heat sink and the Ram chips are just warm, but the outer right corner is definetely hotter than the heat sink.

R.

[ALBPM]

Hi Jupp,

Hang in there till Monday and will get help for you. This doesn't look good if it won't work in both systems. Especially if it won't work in the BX system.
The Beta Boiz have let Haig/Matrox know of your problems and we should hear from them on Monday when they are back at work.

Paul

[Jupp]

Hi Paul,

thanks for your help (that includes the rest of the BBz as well).

I think I'll follow your advice and be patient till Monday (even if it's kinda hard for me right now, I guess you know why ).

Anyway I just had another go and disconnected all peripherals from the mainboard and reinserted the P again.
Unfortunately there is no change.

I switched back to my simply great Max and try to be patient. A beer might help with that (maybe 5-10 are better. Burp!).
Just for medical purposes, of course!


R.

[zandor]

Might be able to get it to limp along.

Sounds like an overheating problem. Usually when a chip overheats it works a little while on a cold start, then crashes. After that the problem gets progrssively worse until you turn it off & let it cool down or it stops working altogether. On a good day it'll work (till it overheats) again after you let it cool off.

You might be able to get it to limp along for a while by running w/ the cover off and pointing a fan into the case. I did this with a 486 years ago while waiting for a fan replacement. I just popped the dead fan off the heatsink & my little desk fan did the rest.
Another thing I did once was make a duct out of plastic bags from the window in my dorm room into the 386 I used as a terminal so I could check email w/o getting out of bed. It worked quite well during the winter, but as soon as the weather warmed up it quit working. This won't really help you much now though, seeing as Germany is currently in the wrong hemisphere for plastic bag window duct cooling^TM

[Jupp]

Hey Zandor,

yeah overheating might be the problem.

But, if it's overheating within 10-15 seconds I might need an external fan like this

to cool down the P and allowing Win2K to boot correctly.
However, as I don't want to tighten my rig with ropes and steel nails to the ground, I think I'll just wait until tomorrow and find out what Tech support's advice is. If they say plastic bag window duct cooling is the way to go, I might need your assitance.

But then again ... when I look at that pretty cool P retail box .... where's my hammer?

Thanks for cheering me up.

R.

[SCompRacer]

Re: P128 Retail DOA?

Originally posted by Jupp

I inserted the P into another box (350 Mhz PII, Intel BX) and I get
exactly the same behaviour....

Hi Jupp. Just curious if your other box has a WinTV tuner in it too? Or a DVD decoder card? I had a similar problem with no video when I stuck the P in a box with a DVD decoder card, but it didn't hose the BIOS. Page 10 called it an unsupported graphics adapter.

[Jupp]

Re: Re: P128 Retail DOA?

Originally posted by SCompRacer


Hi Jupp. Just curious if your other box has a WinTV tuner in it too? Or a DVD decoder card? I had a similar problem with no video when I stuck the P in a box with a DVD decoder card, but it didn't hose the BIOS. Page 10 called it an unsupported graphics adapter.

Nope. Just a simple box. Nothing special in there.


R.

[Haig]

Hi Jupp,

can i have your serial #?

[Wombat]

PM it to him, don't post it publically.

[Jupp]

Here ya go ...

Haig doesn't like PMs, I wonder why?

Hi Mr. Tech Support,

as printed on the box:

P/N: ...
S/N: ...

I think that's it.

Thanks for your support.

R.

[Wombat]

Did you miss the part where I told you not to post it publically? You generally don't want to give that number out.

[Jupp]

No - I've seen it, but PMing/mailing Haig simply didn't work, because he disabled it in his profile.

I'm aware of your concerns but I simply didn't know how to send the serial.


R.

[Haig]

Thanks. You can edit your post and remove your s/n.