Matrox Problems with 2 dual 450 PCI

C

cgjung

I've been running 2 dual Matrox 450 PCI cards, 16M and 32M cards.

My computer restart automatically a few times during the day. I've gone into Win 2000 and turn off the automatic restart but it just ends up freezing up in a blue screen. I've reformated the hard drive half a dozen times. I've downloaded the updated drivers at the Matrox website. I can't figure out what the problem is. Could it be the NEC screens? or the 16M and 32M are incompatible.

2 NEC 18" 1850 E Flatscreen
2 Sony 17 Trinitrons

P4 1.6
512 Cache
P4S-333 ASUS
512 DDR Ram
20 g harddrive

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just about to throw the computer out the window.
 
Check the chipset on the motherboard. I know, based on personal experience, that the 850e chipset (for the P4 chip) does not like more than one Matrox card in the computer. In my case, it either refused to recognize the 2nd card (i.e.: computer wouldn't boot) or, if it did, the resolution was much lower than the cards are rated for and, of course, the random reboots.

Anecdotal evidence from my research online seems to suggest that multiple video cards with certain intel P4 chipsets is harder and more problematic than it should be or

Hope this helps.

-eLindy
 
Quote from cgjung:

I've been running 2 dual Matrox 450 PCI cards, 16M and 32M cards.

My computer restart automatically a few times during the day. I've gone into Win 2000 and turn off the automatic restart but it just ends up freezing up in a blue screen. I've reformated the hard drive half a dozen times. I've downloaded the updated drivers at the Matrox website. I can't figure out what the problem is. Could it be the NEC screens? or the 16M and 32M are incompatible.

2 NEC 18" 1850 E Flatscreen
2 Sony 17 Trinitrons

P4 1.6
512 Cache
P4S-333 ASUS
512 DDR Ram
20 g harddrive

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just about to throw the computer out the window.
More...
I have three Matrox graphics cards in my computer, two G200 MMS Quads, and one G550 Dual DVI. I currently have eight monitors attached.

As you may be aware, these all run under the same Universal driver, and was a major reason why I chose these together.

I ran one G200 and the G550 for a long time without ever having a problem. As soon as I added the second QUAD, about once a day, my computer will trash one or more of my screens and I have to reboot. Sometimes I am not so lucky and Windows 2000 core dumps.

It does seem to be related to the Matrox cards, but this stuff is so hard to isolate.

nitro
 
finally got a matrox parhelia card for the P4, at least I can get 3 monitors on that pc now .. it still reboots now and then just for the heck of it... so of course I will only be using that one for graphic design work etc nothing online.... the parhelia's a nice card, I like it...

I'm giving a thumbs down rating to the P4 w/850e intel chipset... just seems like it has all kinds of undocumented problems that the pII and pIII never had re multimonitor setups and random reboots... also it's had difficulty recognizing my 120gig HD from time to time on boot...

good thing to have a router to run several pcs with, + UPS for power outages.. looks like the PIII is the sturdy workhorse for multimonitor rigs ..

anyone know any decent P4 motherboards that can run either an AGP + multi PCI vid-cards, or several PCI multihead cards?

and hey, can always use the P4 for running dvdxcopy.com/nero burns etc... fast and decent for multimedia, but not good for more than 3 monitors is what I've found..

thx..

ken
 
You may want to uncheck the bus mastering box for a try. The top hub is so maxed out on Intel machines that if you tax it more with bus mastering (which by default on the install of the Matrox cards/ Intel chipset) ,I suspect it creates an electrical cross talk. I can't prove this but with frontsided bus @ 400/533 mhz and the card normal operation set to bus mastering I can see potential radio frequency crosstalk as the frontside bus is a signal quad pumped on natural 100/133 bus timing. This would make sense why you wouldn't have the problem with p3 but do p4.
 
Quote from Ken_DTU:

finally got a matrox parhelia card for the P4, at least I can get 3 monitors on that pc now .. it still reboots now and then just for the heck of it... so of course I will only be using that one for graphic design work etc nothing online.... the parhelia's a nice card, I like it...

I'm giving a thumbs down rating to the P4 w/850e intel chipset... just seems like it has all kinds of undocumented problems that the pII and pIII never had re multimonitor setups and random reboots... also it's had difficulty recognizing my 120gig HD from time to time on boot...

good thing to have a router to run several pcs with, + UPS for power outages.. looks like the PIII is the sturdy workhorse for multimonitor rigs ..

anyone know any decent P4 motherboards that can run either an AGP + multi PCI vid-cards, or several PCI multihead cards?

and hey, can always use the P4 for running dvdxcopy.com/nero burns etc... fast and decent for multimedia, but not good for more than 3 monitors is what I've found..

thx..

ken
More...


my AMD athlon chip does all that (nero burns/games etc) and drives three Matrox 450 dual cards perfectly.

thankfully no issues here.:)
 
Another thing that can affect locks is have under the Display icon settings tab change the color from true color 32 bit to true color 16 bit. With trading software writing huge amounts of data to video ram this will cut it in half and not make any visual changes for most users. It's fixed many computers I've worked on for clients.

Another one that one works in a lot of cases is Ad-Adware from Lavasoftusa.com A lot of spyware will cause the problems described here.

Fwiw

Bsulli
 
thx, will try re bus mastering ...also the intc app. accelerator may be a factor, hadn't been an app using before.... good to hear re the AMD chip... also I know one constraint is to make sure to have a decent power supply for these new m/bs, eg 350w+ ...

nice to see so many tech-savvy folks here ... agree re need for anti-trojan, I like the pestpatrol.com utility, ad-aware's also excellent, I use both .. it's a clean install this time, just hardware issues on the pci bus ... it's likely worth another call to intc tech support if anyone wants to do that, the tech I talked with was very knowledgeable/helpful...


ken
 
Anyone using digital output from a g550 dvi or parehlia card? Is it noticeably better than analog? What resolution can you get from digital output to two monitors? Can you run multiple g550 dvis or parehlias in the same pc?
thanks
 
Quote from just21:

Anyone using digital output from a g550 dvi or parehlia card? Is it noticeably better than analog? What resolution can you get from digital output to two monitors? Can you run multiple g550 dvis or parehlias in the same pc?
thanks
More...
Yes to digital output on the G550 (I do not own the Parhelia.) Five of my monitors are in digital mode. IMHO, the biggest difference is in the steadiness and clarity of the screen, plus the colors "jump out" at you more.

The G500 is an AGP card (at least mine is, I do not know if they have introduced PCI versions.) Therefore, it is "impossible" to have more than one of these in the computer at once.

As to the resolution, I use 1280 x 1024 which is the sweert spot for me, and my monitors do not support higher than that.

Be careful about getting opinions on what looks good or does not on monitors - it is extremely subjective...

nitro
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top