Is there a way to raise a "clinically dead" G400?

[Biggs]

'Allo mates,

I'm trying to fix a 32MB G400DH that simply won't boot (just outputs a blank screen). When I push the power button of my PC, the board initializes normally but "hangs" (i.e. does the continuous beeps for a failed video card) afterwards. According to the person who sent me this card, it just suddenly died after standby (motherboard was an ECS K7VTA3). I've got a Matrox BIOS restore diskette in my hand (from a different 32MB G400DH) but I was wondering how the heck would I be able to use it if the the card won't even boot-up in the first place. Am I looking at a G400 funeral in the very near future or is there still a way to restore this once great card from Matrox? Your replies and comments would be greatly appreciated.

G'day,
Biggs

[Nowhere]

If during POST bios indicates failed video I'm afraid you can't do much...if just the bios of g400 would have been corrupted, it should past post, and then just output blank screen...

[UtwigMU]

I did it.

You need another machine/videocard to create floppy disk.

download this

ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/utils/biosutil/recover.zip

create restore BIOS disk, set primary boot to A: in BIOS, install G400 (needless to say power off machine and ground before doing this), insert diskete and restart.

My card wasn't even detected by BIOS (motherboard) (no video signal beeps), but the restoreBIOS (card) disk brought it back to life.

Edit: Spelling

[Nowhere]

UtwigMU, your card probably had just corrupted bios (I mention about that eventuality in the end of my previous post).

But Biggs wrote that his card stops system from getting to the point when he can use recovery disc (from what I understand anyway).

[UtwigMU]

Did you try booting with any PCI card as primary in BIOS?

How about AGP 4x issues / support (some G400 would not work in some AGP 4x boards unless modded?


Does your monitor initialize at all?

If you have restore BIOS diskette (restore utility, not Matrox Emergency disk), you can boot with a clinically dead (no monitor initialization, beeps signaling dead/nonpresent videocard) graphic board and it should restore it.

Edit: removed Hotswap suggestion (I meant bootup, press pause, insert G400 before floppy initializes, press any key).

Didn't actually try it, but it happened with a few cards that they got unseated during use and they worked afterwards.

[Kruzin]

I wouldn't suggest a hot swap.

But do try to boot with a PCI video card and the G400 in the system, with the PCI set as primary, then run the recover utility.

[Biggs]

Utwig, thanks for the heads up. I'll give your suggestion a shot in a bit. About the AGP 4x issues, I'm quite familiar with it complements of this forum. For the record, the motherboard is a Supermicro P6SBA (Intel i440BX) and the G400DH is the non-"4A" variety.

Nowhere, during POST, the board tests the memory then detects the IDE controllers then afterwards, it returns a blank screen in conjunction with the continuous beep codes from the motherboard.

Many thank to all.

[Nowhere]

If POST looks like this your G400 probably is recoverable...if you have bios restoring diskette...

p.s. you can try the diagnostic diskette from matrox - if the image will show, you'll be certain that this g400 will be ok sooner or later...

[UtwigMU]

Did you make recover BIOS utility diskette?

Does it boot from the diskette (floppy access light, can you hear seeks on floppy?)

[Biggs]

Tis a sad day, my friends. I've just popped the card back in, however, it wouldn't even POST now. I've tried removing it back and forth, securing if the slot fits "fully", pushing it down real hard to make sure it "fits", etc. but alas, all I get is the continuous audible beep from the PC speaker. Dayam, it made it to POST yesterday! Oh well, I'll give it one last crack tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath. Well, thanks again for all the help. Cheers.

[UtwigMU]

did you have the floppy in?
did it access it?

My rundown:

make restore disk
turn off
remove cable from PSU
pop Hercules 3D Prophet 2MX out
install G400 in
plug cable back into PSU
insert disk
turn on
blank screen (no BIOS screen, monitor off.
beeeeeep beep beep beep (no videocard found beep code)
scratch scratch (floppy access)
wait
floppy access ends
wait
reset
screen comes on, it was blank untill reboot - not even monitor turned on:
Intel Pentium II CPU @ 467 MHz...
256MB RAM OK..

It's alive, it's alive.


Generally computers can boot w/o videocard, however windows doesn't like this.

Also disable halt on all errors in BIOS

[edzel]

I had the same problem with my old G400 DH 32MB card, that would stop working every few weeks without any reason. When booting the PC the Bios sent the "no graphic card" beep signal. The Matrox was 2 years old at that time.

Several times I was able to make it work again by reflashing the Bios.

I put an old PCI graphic card in and set is as primary graphic card in the BIOS. Under Windows 2000 I started the Matrox PBiosWin.exe flash utility that in those cases showed Matrox Bios version "0.0", as if the graphic card bios was absent.

Flashing the Bios solved the problem about a dozen times, but then after another failure the card wasn't able to store the Bios anymore. Flashing worked, but after reboot the card was still dead.

[The PIT]

When I had my Abit board it was a monthly rountine this. Turn computer on bleep bleep bleep. Insert floppy rescue disk. Reboot bingo.

[Biggs]

HOLY TOLEDO, Batman! I followed UTwigMu's advise and it worked like a charm.

Unfortunately, I might have popped the champagne too soon. Though the card "apparently" works, for some eerie reason, it can't be detected by the driver. Here's the scenario,

1) Double-click the set-up.exe from the v5.86 driver
2) Highlight 'English' on the language selection screen
3) Drivers supported by this software: blank
Drivers NOT supported by this software: Millennium G400/G450

Hmmmm, WTF is this? I tried using the floppy rescue again but still got the same response afterwards. I figured it might be due to a dated BIOS issue thus I flashed to the latest via PBIOSwin.exe, but still no dice.

Could it be that the actual BIOS chip is at fault (i.e. corrupted in some way) here? I'm only able to get basic video functionality care of Win 2K's default VGA driver. I also tried updating the driver via Device Manager which "kinda" worked. Though it allowed me to change to the maximum values of resolution and refresh rate, it still didn't display the Powerdesk features (e.g. Matrox info, monitor calibration, etc.). Furthermore, after I rebooted, the Win 2K brought it back to the default VGA driver. Now I'm really stumped. Thanks.

[UtwigMU]

Did you have other drivers installed previously?

Matrox drivers uninstall flawlessly, which cannot be said for nVidia and Ati.

Can you risk a reinstall of Windows?