New mobo for G400 (1.5v, 3.3v)

[Cliff]

Hi all,

Looking for a new motherboard/cpu, but I want to keep must trusty old G400Max.

I was looking at the Epox 8rda+, but the boffins at Epox reckon you must use pure 1.5 cards (not 1.5/3.3v as my G400Max is).

Proof of what they say comes from a guy who tried this combo. Works okay for four days, then failed. Replaced the G400 with another card and not it works fine.

Can anyone recommend a current (or recent) motherboard that they know, for sure, will work with a Matrox G400Max (1.5v, 3.3v) card?

Failing that, do you know of a good replacement for the G400...preferably something with good video out.

Thanks in advance, Cliff

[dZeus]

there are lots of threads about this already, use search, or look at the titles of the other threads.. this one shows up not far under your thread:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41926

and in the FAQ forum:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38574

[Cliff]

Hi,

Thanks for the tip.

The problem is one of finding examples of current boards that will actually run with the G400...real life examples rather than just people say that it should work in theory.

Even the moderators at the Matrox forum aren't prepared to say what motherboards the G400's will work on.

The thread on the problem with the early version of the G400 and AGP 2.0 spec problems was interesting...pages and pages of discussion, but only one real example provided of a current board that works with it - Asus P4PE.

I've put in 'G400 1.5V' in the search...that's given me a bunch more results to check out. I'll post back whatever I find out.

Cliff

[Cliff]

Confusion reigns!

Everyone seems to say that a G400 will work in 1.5 slot as long as it is a '4A' model.

That may be the case with motherboards that support the AGP 2.0 specification, but newer mobos support AGP 3.0 specification. There are some boards that support both specifications, so they should be fine. However, what about those that only support AGP 3.0 (e.g Epox 8rda+)?

AGP 3.0 only allows for 4x/8x transfers.

From Haig, "The G400 will support a 4x motherboard by auto switching the voltage when it detects a 4x slot. Even then, we will do 2x transfers."

Does this mean that the G400 cannot do 4x transfers? If so, how can it comply with AGP 3.0?

Also, I've looked throught the manual for the 8rda+ and there is no means to manually set the transfer rate. It makes sense in that a 1.5V graphics card can only be 4x and a 0.8 card must be 8x.

I'm still trying to get a clear answer from the Matrox forum, but if anyone else has thoughts on this please feel free to share :-)

Thanks, Cliff

[stevenscott]

at what CPU speed does the G400 become a system bottelneck? i.e., 1 gig hz. 1.2 gig hz ? because it cannot keep up.... I am about to move mine to another computer. But, if I go with a P4, there would be no sense in trying to keep it there, because, well, it would be to much of an ancient bottleneck... Reason why I would like to keep it, it is a G400 marvel. Also, the 4X discussion. It is supposed to be able to work on the higher speed Motherboards. yes, it has that slot thingy.

[dZeus]

depends on how GPU-limited the game/application is you're running. From experience, at about 800-900 MHz for P3, the G400 stops scaling in speed at GPU-intensive games.

[mmp121]

I can say from experience that my G400 (AGP 2X) non 4A model works perfectly fine in my Shuttle mini (Intel 845 chipset). One "slight" mod needed to be done. I taped a sliver of rolled aluminum foil between 2 resistors R68 if memory serves me right to "close" the connection and viola, working PC and MB. So when people say that it works, they are not just making it up.

[rylan]

Yeah, I solder shorted R68 on a couple old G400 boards at work and they work fine... didn't work until that though.