G400 Max and WinXP Pro

[Big Dog]

I recently dropped my G400 Max into my system, and ran into some "issues".

System: Gateway Performance 1800 - Intel 845 mobo, 1800Gz P4, 512 mb RAM.

1. Upon start up, the Gateway logo appears, then the Windows XP start up screen, then flashes back to the Gateway logo (only the colors are reversed). This ONLY happens with WinXP Pro and not Win XP Home.

2. PC Doctor (system utility) reports a possible memory problem with the video card RAM, and it fails the "generic 3D test" (My suspicion here is that the G400 Max doesn't fully support this DX8 based test).

Is there a utility that can check the video card's RAM (and other functions) to make sure it is running correctly?

[WyWyWyWy]

Not sure about #1, but for #2, you can overclock it a tiny bit and use 3DMark to stress test it for may be 12+ hours.

[bobkoure]

Does the BIOS in your system allow you to disable AGP 8X?
Your G400 isn't going to run at 8X anyway, so disabling it in BIOS won't lose you anything (and may un-confuse XP).
You might also try setting the "PnP Aware OS" to "NO" - this will get BIOS to do more device setup (rather than leave it to the OS), which, again, may un-confuse XP.
Bob

[UtwigMU]

Download Diagnostic utility form here or from Matrox, it performs memory tests.

[Big Dog]

urm...couldn't find the Diagnostic utility here or at Matrox. Can you provide a URL?

[UtwigMU]

ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/utils/t...p/makedisk.zip

[Big Dog]

Thanks - that worked fine. Turns out the card is ok. Sounds like PC Doctor is testing for DX 8 compatibility. Guess this means I can ditch the Nvidia card that's in there and safely use the G400 Max.