I changed the refresh rate for my g200 under win95 using the matrox screen tool ( i choose 75hz) and now i get a black screen and no signal from the GPU, if i put an s3 virge in i can use the PC normally and i can even see the g200 in the peripherals (with a yellow tag) i really don't know how to recover the card.
What resolution were you running when you changed the setting? Do you have a newer monitor that possibly could handle the resoltion/refresh rate combo? If so, hook that one up, change setting back and see if it works again with the original monitor.
What resolution were you running when you changed the setting? Do you have a newer monitor that possibly could handle the resoltion/refresh rate combo? If so, hook that one up, change setting back and see if it works again with the original monitor.
I don't have a monitor able to take weird refreshrates but i need to explain my current condition a little better.
I wanted to change the refreshrate in DOS, i used unirfrsh and vbehz, after a lot of messing around i probably changed something because my millennium 2 shows no signal in the BIOS and DOS while it shows up correctly in win95, i would like to know how to make the millennium 2 work in DOS again, i just want to reset whatever i changed. Then i tried my g200, with the 200 i used the default monitor app for changing the refresh rate to 75 and now it doesn't shows anything in DOS and windows.
Were you not able to simply go into Safe Mode in Windows 95 with the original card and set the resolution to 640x480 16 colours? Or were you not even seeing the F8 menu?
Also remove any graphics tools you may have been playing around with from config.sys &/or autoexec.bat.
Were you not able to simply go into Safe Mode in Windows 95 with the original card and set the resolution to 640x480 16 colours? Or were you not even seeing the F8 menu?
Also remove any graphics tools you may have been playing around with from config.sys &/or autoexec.bat.
Somehow i can't even see post, anything not windows is blank, i know for a fact that the bios has not been flashed, so why ? what do i need to do to reset everything ?
Weird. Pull the CMOS battery, do a clean boot off a boot disk, see what happens then?
I did pull the battery, same thing, it's as if the GPU is set to work at 75hz constantly, as if it was flashed but it wasn't , guys i'm ready to try any software to solve this.
Not sure if this will work, but if the PC is booting into Windows with the card on it's own (albeit without a display), try installing something like an older version of VNC server (you may need to install another graphics card temporarily to get this far). Then having just the G200 installed on it's own (no other graphics cards), boot Windows and from another PC login to the VNC server and run the matrox screen control to try and undo whatever you did. You will of course need the 2 machines linked via Ethernet.
I flashed the g200 with the 899-23.bin bios but now the picture is all messed up, is the gpu recoverable ?
Suspect that whatever has happened (refresh rate change > BIOS recovery > BIOS flash) that at some point the PINS structure has become corrupted and you won't fix this with a simple BIOS refresh - you'll need the valid PINS.TXT for your card to repair that area as well.
This small app, MXINFO, can check the current data structure from your card and can also dump the current state of your PINS data to a txt file (as your card is currently borked you can add another card as primary video and have the G200 as secondary, then use the MXINFO -DEAD command to create the output)
"Matrox video BIOS data dump v0.99, GBM 08/2001
Run "MXINFO -?" for usage options.
Usage: MXINFO - analyze active BIOS
MXINFO -dead - analyze dead BIOS
MXINFO <biosfile> - analyze BIOS image from file
MXINFO -pins <pinsfile> - analyze PINS from text file
MXINFO - Card type recognition and important data dump
MXINFO v0.99 - Recognition of all G-series boards, verbose PInS dump, new boards support.
MXINFO is a basic tool for troubleshooting of BIOS failures, driver installation problems and "what do I have" confussions. It also has the capability to analyze the dead BIOS and recover PINS data from it (to be further used by Progbios.
The program dumps some important data read from Matrox card BIOS image. It can recognize and report card type and some vital parameters. Works in DOS / Win9x. MXINFO may be used to troubleshoot PINS and SUBSYS_ID problems that influence Windows driver installation.
What to look for
Card model
If "Unknown" the card will have problems with driver installation (this results from loosing some info after BIOS programming failure, but it also occurs in some brand-new G100 cards and a few old G200s).
PINS data
If the values are strange (like 355 MHz RAMDAC, strange date or memory size) - PINS structure is probably destroyed and must be restored, otherwise the Windows driver will not operate properly.
Dead BIOS
To analyze dead BIOS, use "-dead" option with MXINFO. This will not work under Windows nor under EMM386 (use "Restart in MS-DOS mode" under Win). One interesting thing about dead BIOS is that on G-series the destroyed BIOS may still contain correct PINS, which MXINFO is trying to find (and dump in PROGBIOS-compatible manner).
Clock info and refresh rates
MXINFO will show clock rates in various modes, possible clock speed reduction with add-in memory and max vertical sync frequencies with various pixel depths. Currently this should report the correct rates for G-series, and some correct rates Millenium II and Mystique. Note that these clock rates are the ones SPECIFIED in card's BIOS, not actually programmed (using overclocking utilities). See below."
As an example, this is the output from my Millenium G200 AGP 16MB
Ok i used the program, it recognizes the card as a g200 pci eclipse but the card model is unknown g200, the base memory is also incorrect, it says 16mb but my gpu has only 8.
Here's my pin.txt, what should i do now to fix the card ?
I took the gamble and used the pins for the g200 AGP SD and now it works, somehow i even got the 75hz both in windows and DOS.
I fixed the card and even solved the 75hz issue i had, good i guess.