G200 driver problem(?)

[Newbie]

Hi,
I was recently having problems with screen re-draws in Illustrator 8 so I decided to update my Millennium G200 driver.

I upgraded to the "5.41.008" driver(after following Matrox's instructions to remove old drivers) and began to experience several new problems. Icons & buttons in several applications would disappear and be replaced by jumbled colors and video "noise". I would have to shut down whatever application I was using and restart to get a proper display.

I then decided to install driver 5.20.013, which claimed to be "Windows certified". I used Matrox's utility to remove the 5.41.008 driver and installed the 5.20.013 driver.

The problem not only remained, but got worse. Now, entire menu dialog boxes and application screens were "infected" with this garbled "screen noise", making it impossible to do my work. (I will e-mail you a screen shot j-peg if you provide me with your e-mail address)

I was planning on ordering a Matrox G400MAX & Rainbow Runner G-series combo, but I believe I will hold off until I see whether or not this driver problem can be fixed.

Has anyone else had this particular problem?
I am running Win'98 on a PII 300mhz processor on a Microstar MS-6119 motherboard with 256mb RAM.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

[Wombat]

It sounds a lot like a heat issue. That's what my card looks like when it gets too hot. Have you tried running with the case off?

Also, post a screen shot. Let's see if the corruption gets that far.

[Newbie]

A heat issue? OK, I'll try taking the cover off for a while and see if that helps, but I never had this type of problem until I upgraded my drivers.

As far as posting a screen shot I...uhhh... don't know how to do that. (blush) Hence my choice of username. Can you offer instuctions on how to do that?
Thanks.

[Marshmallowman]

what bios version do you have?. If you have an old version it would be a good idea to update.

How old is your win 98 installation, was it a win95 upgrade or was it a fresh install.

[Wombat]

Hmm, BIOS. I like that suggestion too.

[Newbie]

Hey, Marshmallowman.

My BIOS version is 4.10.1998. I guess I should go to the Microsoft website & update, right? I had Win'98 installed on my machine when I bought it a year ago. Should I do a fresh install? (please say no)

Thanks.

[butlerx]

Had a similar experience with a Microstar
MS-5184 that I'd attributed up til now
to the MVP3 chipset. Maybe it's a Microstar design or bios flaw instead. Of the four Powerdesk versions I've tried both 4.33 and 5.13 exhibited the same galloping screen corruption. The only solution I found was to Disable bitmap caching and reduce the AGP aperture to 4mb. Another peculiarity that went hand in hand with the display "noise" was PD properties detecting my G200 with 10
or sometimes 12mb of SDRAM instead of 8. I'm
wondering if you've seen the same detection error and whether it's a symptom or the cause.

PD 4.51 and 5.25 have been trouble free so far except for running DirectX games after using openGL without first restarting the comp but that's probably a different (Microstar?)issue altogether.

[Wombat]

Actually, I was thinking about the G200's BIOS. The version is reported by the Matrox software.

[Newbie]

Wombat,
The G200's BIOS is version 1.2-9
Should I update it? Is it a download from the Matrox site?
Thanks.

[Newbie]

Wombat,
The G200's BIOS is version 1.2-9
Should I update it? Is it a download from the Matrox site?
Thanks.

[Randy Simons]

By all means yes! For some previous drivers Matrox already required you to have BIOS 2.6 before using that driver. I don't think that that requirement is lifted since then.

Gettings newest mainboard BIOS and VGART drivers for your AGP is also recommended.

After you have done that, and install the 5.41 powerdesk (which I think is the best so far) and you still got the "videonoise" -which is a bad thing- you indeed might try to screw on a $5-486-fan on your Millennium. If that doesn't help also, it might be bad RAM.

[Newbie]

(a belated) Aha! That seems to have practically fixed the problem. Now all I get is a garbled button or two once in a while, but I'm a lot better off than I was. I'm going to get a tech friend of mine to help me update my mobo bios and that should clear everything else up. Thanks for all your help guys. When I get insanely rich and buy out Matrox you've all got high paying jobs as consultants!