G400 instability with Windows XP

I have a new motherboard and processor and now I am having problems with my
Matrox card (G400) with Windows XP and the latest drivers. Once in a while
the display becomes a bit fuzzy and everything hangs. Sometimes this happens
after a few minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. It only happens when you
are doing something. Occasionally XP catches the error. This can happen in
two ways:
- after the screen has been fuzzy there comes a prompt that XP has catched
an Matrox driver error. Than the display is set back to 640x480 at 16
colors. Next time you start up it has its old values.
- after I have pressed the reset button and the system has restarted XP
comes with a prompt about an error in the previous session and wants to mail
a report to Microsoft. Sometimes in the message something can be found about
the Matrox driver.
In most cases neither of the two happens.

When I boot under windows ME the system is stable and I have no problem.The
XP partition has worked OK on an older system. For the new motherboard (Asus
A7V8X-X) I had to upgrade to servicepack 1, but other than that there were
no software changes.

I tried disabling hardware acceleration and "simultaneous access" and
changing a bios setting from PCI VGA to AGP VGA, but that had no effect.

Does anyone know what this could be and how I could repair this?

Thanks,
Wim

Have you tried updating to the latest bios on the G400.

"Wim Rafera" wrote in message
...
I have a new motherboard and processor and now I am having problems with
my
Matrox card (G400) with Windows XP and the latest drivers. Once in a while
the display becomes a bit fuzzy and everything hangs. Sometimes this
happens
after a few minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. It only happens when you
are doing something. Occasionally XP catches the error. This can happen in
two ways:
- after the screen has been fuzzy there comes a prompt that XP has
catched
an Matrox driver error. Than the display is set back to 640x480 at 16
colors. Next time you start up it has its old values.
- after I have pressed the reset button and the system has restarted XP
comes with a prompt about an error in the previous session and wants to
mail
a report to Microsoft. Sometimes in the message something can be found
about
the Matrox driver.
In most cases neither of the two happens.

When I boot under windows ME the system is stable and I have no
problem.The
XP partition has worked OK on an older system. For the new motherboard
(Asus
A7V8X-X) I had to upgrade to servicepack 1, but other than that there were
no software changes.

I tried disabling hardware acceleration and "simultaneous access" and
changing a bios setting from PCI VGA to AGP VGA, but that had no effect.

Does anyone know what this could be and how I could repair this?

Thanks,
Wim

I've been using 586 now for over a year in XP Pro (G450), using two monitors
with UltraMon software, with total stability. I wouldn't even consider
upgrading to anything else. (If it ain't broke....)

You can download the older 586 driver he
http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/dr...s/2kxp_586.cfm



"Wim Rafera" wrote in message
...
I have a new motherboard and processor and now I am having problems with
my
Matrox card (G400) with Windows XP and the latest drivers. Once in a while
the display becomes a bit fuzzy and everything hangs. Sometimes this
happens
after a few minutes, sometimes it takes an hour. It only happens when you
are doing something. Occasionally XP catches the error. This can happen in
two ways:
- after the screen has been fuzzy there comes a prompt that XP has
catched
an Matrox driver error. Than the display is set back to 640x480 at 16
colors. Next time you start up it has its old values.
- after I have pressed the reset button and the system has restarted XP
comes with a prompt about an error in the previous session and wants to
mail
a report to Microsoft. Sometimes in the message something can be found
about
the Matrox driver.
In most cases neither of the two happens.

When I boot under windows ME the system is stable and I have no
problem.The
XP partition has worked OK on an older system. For the new motherboard
(Asus
A7V8X-X) I had to upgrade to servicepack 1, but other than that there were
no software changes.

I tried disabling hardware acceleration and "simultaneous access" and
changing a bios setting from PCI VGA to AGP VGA, but that had no effect.

Does anyone know what this could be and how I could repair this?

Thanks,
Wim

Next time you have the card out, take a pencil eraser, preferably the white
kind, intended for erasing ink, and buff up the gold contacts on the edge
connector of the card.

Bill Crocker




"Poelepetaat" wrote in message
l.nl...

I have similar unpredictable errors. In my case I suspect it has to do
with the seating/fitting of the board in my old Aopen AX6BC MB AGP
slot. Reseating the card does the problems go away for longer periods
normally.