GeForce2 MX 400 Lockup problems

[skepper]

GeForce2 MX 400 doghouse

Hi, I have noticed this GF2 MX400 problem being reported on a lot of forums, with no particular response. Fingers crossed someone here may have a solution

I have been using a generic 8meg AGP to avoid spending too much time playing games, but I recently bought a Pixelview GForce2MX400 model to catch up on Tribes2. Upon installation, my computer began crashing at random. It freezes up and i have to use the reset button. After some tweaking with drivers & settings, I took the card back & upgraded to the Asus model (V7100 Pro MX400), thinking that the Pixelview card must be inferior cooling or something. Unfortunately the problems continue... the card isnt even hot when it fails.

I have tried switching between 2x / 4x AGP, D3D / OGL, Detonator3 & 4, the original Asus drivers, updated Asus drivers (always using correct install procedures). Unfortunately I don't have a second PC to test the card in, but i suspect it is something with the system and not the card, as the problem recurrs even though i have switched cards / manufacturers. I've never had major PC dramas until now. I've delved through endless forums, manufacturer faqs, and worn google out on this one! Has anyone encountered & resolved this problem? Ta!

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I have:
Celeron 900Mhz
Asus TUSL2-C mobo packing the latest BIOS
256mg SDram pc 133 (running @ celeron's FSB100),
Seagate 7200x hdd (DMA enabled),
SB Live sound
300 watt power supply (i monitored 3.3 voltage running @ a constant 3.47v - is this an issue?)
Win98SE (please dont tell me to upgrade to XP!).
DirectX 8.1

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[Arris]

Welcome to TechSpot forums

Incase you haven't come across this resource yet I suggest you check www.geforcefaq.com (also in my signature).
This FAQ is very full of detail and has dedicated sections to freeze/lockup problems.

The usual causes of lockups are:

• Heat (do you have the Asus Smartdoctor to monitor your cards temperature and software to monitor you motherboard temp [or check the BIOS after a reboot for hardware temperature monitoring])
• Lack of motherboard AGP drivers (check what chipset your motherboard uses and make sure you have the latest drivers for your motherboard chipsets)
• Nvidia Detonator drivers acting up ( use the detonator destroyer available at www.guru3d.com after standard uninstall to completely remove driver, then reinstall ). I would recommend dumping the Asus Detonators and going with ones from www.nvidia.com (I have an Asus v8200 Geforce3 and stopped using the Asus drivers a long time ago)
• Insufficient power / non-standard supply to AGP port ( I found when I tried to put a GF3 card into a GA-7IXE4 motherboard it kept locking due to what is called a linear power regulator on the board rather than a switching power regulator, Gigabyte tech support said that the board could only support up to a Geforce 2MX even though the AGP port was the v2.0 and should support all cards that can use this port! )

If you haven't tried a format/complete reinstall then its something to consider. Also try the search feature of the forum if you haven't already and search for "lockup freeze geforce".

 

[Arris]

Here was my first post in the old forum for this site.
Its all related to Geforce lockup and there are loads of suggestions of what to try. Check out the BIOS settings suggested in the geforce FAQ, things like Video BIOS Shadowed being disabled and AGP Aperture being set to half system memory size.

 

[vegasgmc]

Has anyone tried Detonator Destroyer in Win 2000? Im having an infinite loop problem since I switched drivers a few times.

 

[uncleel]

Re: GeForce2 MX 400 doghouse

Originally posted by skepper
began crashing at random. It freezes up

Audio and Video > What is "Infinite Loop" error
http://www.3dspotlight.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=717

Nvidia "infinite loop" error
[Comments] by Per Hansson - 12/22/2001 @ 3:15 am
What are the symptoms of this error?
The error normally occurs under a Direct3D or OpenGL application, on systems using a GeForce 2 or GeForce 3
video card with WinXP and the Nvidia detonator drivers 23.11 or 21.83. There are reports, however, of the issue
occurring under Win2K. There are also reports of this occurring with ATI video cards but this has not been confirmed by VIA.

OpenGL- spontaneous reboot, hardware lockup or insufficient virtual memory error from WinXP

Direct 3D - Hardware lockup, BSOD with a message about an infinite loop error with a Nvidia driver

BSOD error message - this varies but refers to a problem with "nv4_disp.dll"

Here is the page that describes the different steps you can try to solve this problem. http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

What are the symptoms of this error?

The error normally occurs under a Direct3D or OpenGL application, on systems using a GeForce 2 or GeForce 3
video card with WinXP and the Nvidia detonator drivers 23.11 or 21.83. There are reports, however, of the issue
occurring under Win2K. There are also reports of this occurring with ATI video cards but this has not been confirmed by VIA.

OpenGL- spontaneous reboot, hardware lockup or insufficient virtual memory error from WinXP

Direct 3D - Hardware lockup, BSOD with a message about an infinite loop error with a Nvidia driver

BSOD error message - this varies but refers to a problem with "nv4_disp.dll"

 

[skepper]

GeForce2 MX 400 Lockup problems & Infinite Loop

Thanx for your suggestions, I'll be trying some when i get home 2nite.

Asus didnt include a monitoring chip device on my gf2 card so i can't install or use their utility to measure it. Is that normal for them not to include one? the mobo temp seems fine though, & voltage supply looks good. sorry i forgot to mention mobo chipset is Intel 815E-P & has lastest bios installed.

i am sticking to trying detonator versions & even tried the latest 29.41 release last nite. I use Detonator Destroyer to clean out the registries when i put new drivers in.

I tried taking out pci cards too, but no joy. btw, I am not & have never overclocked this card. Have also tried various hardware acceleration settings.

After reading a fair bit about infinite loops, i found out it CAN affect win98se on intel chipsets, although it seems to be far more common issue for via mobos. i find it extremely dissappointing to have this prob when i have a spanking new Asus mobo & Asus gf2. i've always stuck to conservative mainstream products to avoid the bleeding-edge *hair-pullers*!

I will check out geforcefaq.com when i get home cause this browser @work doesnt support it for some reason. Got some cool BIOS tips to follow up on. I'll try nvmax too, sounds cool for infinite loops. I'm also going to lower D3D & OGL texture memory below defaults & change my 2 ram strips to banks 1 & 3 to avoid potential conflicts.

Do u think a DMA enabled hard drive could interefere with AGP ops? That's gonna be my first attempt tonite, cause it would fix it so easily!

Thanx again for suggestions, I'll get this setup fixed eventually (cant afford any new gear) & let people know what works.

PS in my clickings, I found this wonderful site which is a one stop site for *stacks* of tweak utilities that are getting hard to find, such as the nvmax final release etc. http://www.voodoofiles.com/
enjoy!

 

[Arris]

Eeek The GeforceFAQ seems broken!

 

[skepper]

weeeee!!! i've fixed it
problem is, i changed so many things that its proving difficult to pinpoint which fix worked.
i *enabled* dma on my hdds, installed nvmax & disabled sidebanding / fast writes / applied infinite loop fix, also used nvidia display settings to reduce pci direct memory to less than 2 meg, played with bios, and even changed my RAM strip configurations. something in all that worked, although i dont think it was nvMax cause i reversed those settings & it still works. i'm going to put together a shortlist of things to check with nv lockups to help others who get this problem as soon as i figure out what made the difference.
w00t! tribes2 rox!

 

[Arris]

Thanks for being considerate enough to work out what you did and post a fix :grinthumb
Glad you got it all working

 

[skepper]

well i mucked around with everything trying to pinpoint what fixed the issue, when i put my network card back in, the pc absolutely s**t itself

i pulled the card back out quicksmart, but the problem didnt go away, although it has now varied from lockups, to bsod, to not booting at all, and finally (after a complete bloody REFORMAT), back to the original lockup symptoms. and none of the fixes i tried before are working... GAH!

i have noticed that all my irqs are being used / shared, with irq11 sharing the AGP card, firewire, network, AND the modem, although device manager doesnt report any conflicts.

its sledgehammer time!

<more saga to follow>

this victory will be sweetest when it comes

 

[skepper]

Final solution for the Geforce2 MX400 lockup

Final solution for the Geforce2 MX400 lockup of my system:

Low (mid) level format of hdd using seagate DiscWizard, followed by fresh install of windows98se, using the latest drivers for everything straight up. Keep an eye on the IRQs, and let the vid card have one to itself.

w00t! can i play some games now? Moral: if your computer won't play ball, drop the bomb! *Plants flag in the sand of enemy territory*

UPDATE: The problem recurred shortly after reformatting, but i found simply disabling my network card in device manager hardware profile fixed it immediately. Hope this helps someone out there!

 

[Arris]

Sounds like you had fun... not.
Well again I just want to thank you for posting your final results.
I usually resort to a format when nothing I try seems to fix the problem. Enjoy your gaming