Matrox video problems??

[J.Taylor]

Hello all,

I recently was given a "hand-me down" computer from our enginering department that has a matrox millennium G400 agp 32 meg video card in it. I read through some of the old posts and it looks like this should be an acceptable card, but I am crashing constantly. The person who takes care of our computers thinks its a video issue, I disagree. Mastercam crashes almost every time I import a new part, and then import tools and operations from a part I have already programmed. If I delete an operation that I may not need on this particular part Mastercam crashes. It will crash im guessing 7 out of 10 times I perform this type of operation. It will occasionally crash in the middle of processing a multiple surface tool path as well. So Im looking for some advise on whether it is the video card, or something else.

650 PENTIUM2 cpu, 512 ram, mastercam 8.1.1 mill level 3.

Thanks,

Jody

[JAMMAN]

Does it crash in other aps? I wasn't aware anyone in TC was running Mastercam.

I would suggest starting with the latest drivers, if that doesn't work, turning video hardware acceleration all the way off should tell if it's the card or not. Lets start there.

We're pratically neighbors!

[J.Taylor]

I have the latest drivers, and I am going to check what the the hardware acceleration is set at. thanks for the reply.

Jody

p.s.

I have relatives that live in petoskey jamman.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

OK,

quote:

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650 PENTIUM2 cpu

---

, Do you mean that you have a Dual CPU 650MHz? If so, this is more likely the cause of your crashes. I personally used that Model video card with NT4.0 and Windows 2000 Pro It was VERY stable with no problems.

To run systems with Dual CPU's successfully, you'll need to do the following.

[*]Start Mastercam

[*]Minimize Mastercam

[*]Righ Click on the Task Bar

[*]Go To Task Manager

[*]Select the "Processes" Tab

[*]Right Click on "Mill8.exe" (or "Mill7.exe", etc... for other Versions)

[*]Set Affinity and set it to run on CPU1

You want it to run on CPU1 because CPU0 is the main CPU and more often than not, CPU1 has less of a load than CPU0.

Now if I've said all of this for nothing because you are not running Windows NT4.0, WIndows 2000 Pro, or Windows XP, then the solution is upgrading to one of the OS's I mentioned. Windows 9x or ME does not support Multiple CPU Systems and the effects can be non existant to totally unstable and everywhere in between.

Hope that helps,

[cadcam]

James i think he ment PII but really would be a PIII.

And are we typing alot tonight.

I see we are tag teaming this board again.

[J.Taylor]

Thanks for the reply James, my system is a 650 pentium III, with a single processor. I am running Windows NT ver 4.0. I have also downloaded all the latest drivers from matrox. They had similar problems using these pc's in our engineering dept. but they thought it was just a problem with cadkey. If you guys & gals can think of anything else I should be tinkering with let me know.

Thank a bunch,

Jody

[Brad McIntosh]

Jody,

Has Service Pack 6a been installed/applied to your NT 4.0 system. It was the latest/last full service pack release for NT4.

If not, it may help.

Microsoft NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a

[Bullines]

This may be a long shot, but...

What Windows colour depth setting are you using? To check, do the following:

1. Right-click somewhere on your desktop and select "Properties" from the menu.

2. In the "Display Properties" dialog that appears, click on the "Settings" tab.

3. See what you have "Colors" set to as in the screenshot below.