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ATI Rage Fury Maxx

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First post, by Gramcon

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I got this Rage Fury Maxx with a truckload of computer stuff I bought awhile ago and am just getting around to testing it. I have heard stories that this card can be....difficult. I decided to try it out in a Compaq Prosignia running a Celeron 400 with the 440ZX chipset. Neat machine, with probably the gnarliest heatsink I've ever seen on a CPU. Check out the pic!

Anyway, machine boots fine to the "Insert system disk" prompt (hard drive not yet formatted). Trouble is, whenever I try a warm boot, system hangs and gives the "bad video card" beep codes and I get no display. Turning it off and on again and it's fine, just can't do CTRL-ALT-DEL, or go into BIOS and warm boot reset upon exiting.

System resets fine with another video card, so it's something with either the Rage itself or possibly the way it interacts with this machine. Has anyone had similar issues with this card before?

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Reply 1 of 6, by dionb

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Lucky find! It is known for being touchy though...

i440BX is known to work fine, and iirc the AGP implementation on the ZX is identical to BX. However given this is an OEM machine and board, I'm wondering whether it might not be PSU or at least AGP power related. Other option is something odd with BIOS. You could try to look for an updated BIOS for the board (obviously, flash with a different VGA card).

Reply 2 of 6, by Gramcon

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Good ideas, thanks! I will attempt to find the latest BIOS, though it might be hard to locate. And I have also suspected the power supply, wondering if the 145W monster that Compaq put into this thing is up to the task of running this card. Right now the machine pulls 57W at idle...

Reply 3 of 6, by Ozzuneoj

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Gramcon wrote:

Good ideas, thanks! I will attempt to find the latest BIOS, though it might be hard to locate. And I have also suspected the power supply, wondering if the 145W monster that Compaq put into this thing is up to the task of running this card. Right now the machine pulls 57W at idle...

To reduce the chance of it being power related, disconnect power from all of the drives and remove extra cards.

I just got a Maxx recently myself and I'm looking forward to testing it out. Should be interesting.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 4 of 6, by Katmai500

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I've seen that crazy heatsink before but never knew which OEM system it came from. Very cool! 😁

I've got a MAXX but haven't had time yet to play around with it. Hopefully the BIOS update does the trick for you. I'm assuming you plan to run it with Windows 98?

A MAXX recently sold for $33 on the bay listed as a Rage 128 Pro. Anyone here snag that deal?

Reply 5 of 6, by Gramcon

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Well, surprisingly it wasn't the power supply! I tried another, much higher rated one and have the same problem. Time to look for a BIOS update, and if that doesn't work, try the card in another machine...

Reply 6 of 6, by Gramcon

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Updated the BIOS on the Compaq, no luck. So I transferred the card to a Gateway P3-450, and it appears to be working -- display normal, warm reboots and doesn't lock up. Haven't actually installed the drivers yet. It will be Win98 -- I think this card is limited to that anyway.

Still a mystery why it wouldn't work in the Compaq though...it's really bugging me. Oh well.

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