Help identify a G400

[Britannica]

Could someone help identify a G400 SH 16MB card I bought on EBay.

There are no part/serial numbers on the board - just a sceen printed
label with...

MATROX copyright 1999
891-03 REV : A

My main concern is whether this is a dual voltage auto-switching card
or 3.3V only.

An AOpen AK77-8XN board refused to work with it.

Thanks

[Cliff]

Try posting the detail at the Matrox forum (www.matrox.com).

Try directly at the forum at
http://forum.matrox.com/cgi-bin/mgaforum/Ultimate.cgi

You can also find details on the forum on to how make the early revisions
work at 1.5v. Involves shorting R68 resistor on the board. Search the
forum for 'g400 1.5v' to bring up the appropriate threads.

"Britannica" <brita...@freeuk.cm> wrote in message
news:sf2pcvc33eumt6e9n...@4ax.com...

[John]

All G400's are dual voltage. They'll work fine if the motherboard gives them
the chance (eg. Gigabyte 8IRXP needs a 1.5v card but can run with ANY G400).
However, most of the modern motherboards try to ensure you dont stick a 3.3V
card in there and blow the motherboard. And the early G400's were "wired" to
inform the motherboard they are 3.3V.

Matrox made a circuit board revision, and some early G400's with the revised
circuit board will run in any AGP 4X 1.5V motherboard (but without official
Matrox 4X support).

After this, Matrox started releasing 4X cards with a 4A in the model number.
These are the official Matrox AGP 4x cards. I think the official model
number of your card should be on a white sticker stuck to the card.

So, there are at least 3 different "categories" of G400's.

It sounds like your card is from the first batch of cards. As another poster
mentioned, a couple of people have made the R68 mod with success. I haven't,
so I can't offer any advice. If you decide to make the mod, we'd like to
hear how you get on.

"Britannica" <brita...@freeuk.cm> wrote in message
news:sf2pcvc33eumt6e9n...@4ax.com...
>

[Cliff]

Thanks for you input on this :-)

I've been trying to clarify with Matrox as to whether '4x' support actually
means that the card will perform 4x transfers.

There was a comment in a Matrox thread that implied that even though the
card could run in a 4x port, it would still only do transfers at 2x. I
guess that comment only applied to the earlier version of the cards...the
ones that were hit-and-miss as to whether they worked in a 1.5v slot (or
could be made to work with the R68 mod).

So the '4A' models actually do support 4x transfers - great!

Now I've just got to work out if the G400's will work in a 'pure' AGP 3.0
compliant slot (as opposed to a universal AGP 3.0 slot). The AGP 3.0 spec
states that UAGP card (like the G400) wont. The hunt continues....

Cheers, Cliff

"John" <knight_j...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3ecd362f$0$27525$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...

[Britannica]

On Fri, 23 May 2003 06:45:33 +1000, "John"
<knight_j...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Thanks for the information. In fact I have now RMA'd the AOpen system
board.

The reseller tried to claim I broke it by ignoring the AGP warning LED
- but I pointed them to a test report on AOpen's site showing the G400
had passed their compatibity test. It seems AOpen haven't done their
homework.

I did get things running initially by re-seating the card, and the
system would come up fine from a warm reboot - but once I took power
off the board by dsconnecting the at mains the system would not boot
unless I re-inserted the card. I only persisted in this because AOpen
insist you use their Windows flash utility to update the BIOS. :)

Anyhow the latest BIOS didn't fix the problem and finally something on
the board popped...AOpen's "AGP protection circuit" doesn't seem to
work as intended either.

The reseller is compensating me with a nVidia chipset board with
on-board graphics :). I'll leave the G400 in the old system when I
pass it on...I was going to put my ancient Mystique card in there !

[Daniel Lawrence]

Cliff,
the 4X transfers depend on the card you have and when it was made, in the
beginning they were 2X cards capable of running in 4X systems but only at 2X
speeds. Later when 4X motherboards came out they were upgraded to be able to
work at 4X speeds. Unfortunately the older cards running at 2X can not be
upgraded to 4X speeds. If you post your model number which will look like
G4+.... we can see what speed your card is.

--
Daniel Lawrence
A+, Network+, MCP
"Cliff" <budgie4242...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3ecd5abd$0$26601$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...

[Cliff]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for replying.

I've check my model number with Matrox...it's a '4A' model, so it's
definitely a true 4x version.

My concern is more with the compatibility with the current range of
motherboards which support the AGP 3.0 spec. The AGP 3.0 spec doesn't seem
to support the old 3.3v/1.5v UAGP cards, however, the motherboard may still
include support for AGP 2.0 and so support these cards anyway.

Manufacturers mention support for AGP 3.0 on their site, but there tends to
be no mention of AGP 2.0 support. I'm inclined to think their would be so
they don't alienate a segment of the market that wants to reuse their old
graphics cards.

It's worth noting that AGP 3.0 is 100% backward compatible with AGP 2.0.
Some new stuff was added, but some old stuff was also removed...hence the
need for mobo's include support for both specs.

Cheers, Cliff

"Daniel Lawrence" <delph...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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