Parhelia issues

alewisa

Having problems getting a Parhelia to work with An Abit KT7-RAID mobo. Install the card, all I get are 1 long beep followed by two short beeps. No POST, black screen.

Card works fine in a gigabyte board with Duron CPU.

System
Abit KT7-RAID
Athlon 1gh
384MB RAM
400W PSU

All other cards and drives removed. system works fine with other AGP or PCI cards (and has done for 2 years)

Any ideas?

Abit are no help, Matrox advise enabling PnP OS, USB and Assign IRQ in BIOS... all already done.

gibbon565

Yes this is a similiar problem to my own as I also have an Abit mobo and a Parhelia, you need to update your motherboard Bios,
http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjs..._NAME=KT7-RAID

Download and update it using th einstructions provided with d/l and then let us know how you get on

Andy

P.S. for future isues m8, try this forum as it has dedicated Matrox sections :
http://forums.matroxusers.com/

or the Matrox tech forum

alewisa

Thanks Andy... am allegedly using the latest BIOS, but will double check. Glad to see am not only one with a problem!

Quote:

P.S. for future isues m8, try this forum as it has dedicated Matrox sections : http://forums.matroxusers.com/ or the Matrox tech forum

[/quote]

Already there... Louie just told me to change some BIOS settings. Only one I haven't tried is increasing AGP aperture to 256mb. Will try both tonight.

gibbon565

nice One Well let me know how it goes and to be honest I doubt the AGP aperture size is going to help ..hehe but it's worth a try Oh and as for what you set it to. Well it is best to set it to the same as the memory on the card itself, so if the Parhelia is a 128 ver. then leave it at 128 for best performance from the card.

A good Program to get if you dont have it is Sisoftware Sandra as this will detect any problems and it will also let you know the varios bios and driver versions

Good Luck!

alewisa

Still no joy. Even with the latest BIOS, nothing. Matrox are at least seeing if they can obtain a KT7 RAID board to test in their labs. It seems Parhelia is having issues with some boards, the matrox support forum is full of issues with Parhelia's on Abit boards. Very few problems on other boards.

Use it all the time, namely just to perf test tweaks to BIOS settings, etc. Not much good for this problem though. Latest version is quite sexy, but am thinking of reverting back to 2002pro, as 2003Pro causes some problems under certain configurations.

Brgds
Alan

gibbon565

I'll keep my eye's open and my ears receptive for a fix to your problem To be honest I got a bit of a shock when I didn't get a boot screen but supposedly some motherboards, namely of the Abit variety have a problem with the dual monitor inputs of the Matrox cards I hope this can be fixed through the software or atleast Matrox may beable to make Abit aware of the problem, if it is a bios issue and they might update the bios.

Andy

alewisa

Shocked wasn't what I was. I'm sure I had a G400Max in that particular PC when it was first built, and the G-Force came later. Have a bit of time on my hands tonight, so I'm going to try a G400Max that's spare, and see if there is a problem there - that would raise the chances that it is dual monitor cards. Works fine with an old Millenium card. (and the picture quality is still superior to the G-Force, oddly enough).

Bugger bugger bugger. Oh well, if Global Crossing makes Q4 results, I get a 15% bonus next year. Sort out the car, then put together a kick-ass system (kick ass for about all of 3 weeks, anyway!)

But I really do want to get this system working!

gibbon565

Good luck m8, I hope you find a fix as the Parhelia is a nice card apart from the banding issues

alewisa

Reading something about this on the matrox forum... have you suffered from it, as I haven't. What appears to be the issue?

I'm wondering if the new 256mb version will also feature an improved core, addressing the issues with the current core, or wether they will leave as is to avoid potential large numbers of returnd cards.

gibbon565

Try a game like Soldier of Fortune 2 and make sure FAA 16 x is on and you will see a lot of black line or the outlines of objects and polygons etc If you are not suffering from it then count yourself lucky

UberLord

Even easier to spot is to run UT in a window which overlaps a white window, like an IRC channel for example.

Keep a close eye on the white window whilst playing UT and watch the horizontal disburances

Don't watch for too long as it gave me a headache!

Dane Sabbath

Matrox isn't the only one with a number of problems w/ Abit boards. I dunno why, and I happen to LIKE Abit quite a lot (no problems for me, ever). Abit boards were among the last to pound out probs w/ the 9700 too. Strange.
I wonder what they are doing different? I know MSI has a tendency to max some settings, i.e. their P4 boards run @ 100.95 FSB or @ 133.95 FSB and AGP rates are a little hign too. Perhaps UNDERclocking some values may help you identify a problem. Good luck.


PS Hey alewisa. You really still have your Amiga 4k? Is it still working? I had a 500 for YEARS, best damn machine ever. (lol) Kick a 520ST or 1040ST for me will ya? Still have competitive feelings...

alewisa

Yup, still have the A4K matey. Just added a scandoubler to the Cybervision card so I can use it again (no longer have a 15.625Khz monitor). Also have a vanila A1200, an 1200/060 tower, and a heavily customised B2000 based on a G-Force030 and a host of other cards and mods. Atari? Spit!

alewisa

Having been away a while, maybe I ouhgt to post the conclusion.

Turns out that the Parhelia is incompatible (or should that read 'was' as they are both a bit old now!) with the KT7. Matrox Tech Support tested a P: in the board.. naja. So I had to RMA hte [perfectly fine] Parhelia, and had a new [refurbished] P: sent back. Ta-da! It worked. Can't remember the details, but there was a wire or two soldered on, that wasn't on the other P: (yes, I had two P:s at the time).

A year later, bought a P4P800 and erm, another Abit Athlon board (whatver the 'hot' Abit Athlon XP board was at the time). The stock P: was fine, the modded P: was required for the Abit. ISTR I promised someone (here or Matrox) I'd test the modded board in something, but I don't recall doing so.

Oddly enough, in Sep 2004 I bought a DK8N and a pair of Opteron 250's... Stuck the P: in... didn't work! Ah-ha, I have a modded P: :-) Naja. Nothing. Zilch! No!!! I had just bought a 3rd P: tho, off ebay, one of the 8x models. Success! Turns out the DK8N had a flaw that non-8x cards would not work in the board, unless the board's AGP slot was set to 4x. Which was 'difficult' if you didn't have a PCI card to hand.

Anyway, a bit of history closed. Still have a P: or two, still rock solid. Still not exactly great for gaming, but triple-screen working is soooo nice.