Powerdown Issues w. Matrox MGA-G200 Updates

[houseisland]

Maybe I can spare someone else some pain here.

:)

Been banging my head against the wall with a bunch of older HP workstations -- PIII, 440BX, Crystal audio, and Matrox G200 graphics.

They were upgraded to XP Pro some time ago and all worked well until a bunch of updates from the MS website were done (not by me).

Then they would not power down (as opposed to shut down). They would shut down Windows and stop the hard drive spinning, but leave the shut down splash screen displayed (Windows is shutting down) and PS the running.

Labbing the problem at home this evening with an old Vectra VLI8 (similar enough to the problem workstations), I have discovered that the culprit is the Matrox MGA-G200 driver/software updates from the MS website. They do improve the display quality, but at a cost of turning the PC into an AT-style manual powerdown box.

:knife: :knife: :knife: :knife: :knife:

____________________________________________

http://i1.tinypic.com/n5ngxw.jpg

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[NooNoo]

You can get round that by enabling a hidden device... the NT Apm/Legacy Interface Node

[houseisland]

You can get round that by enabling a hidden device... the NT Apm/Legacy Interface Node

:wave:

Hi NooNoo.

Been there. Done that.

:thumbs2:

The NT Apm/Legacy Interface Node was one of the first things I tried. Unfortunately it was a no-go.

____________________________________________

http://i1.tinypic.com/n5ngxw.jpg

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

The XP Pro SP2 native drivers for the G200 work well enough on a clean install. And there is no powerdown problem.

If the driver upgrade from the MS website is done it introduces the QuickDesk software in addition to the new drivers. It also introduces the powerdown problem.

The update can be removed, after which XP goes through a PnP discovery and reinstalls G200 drivers. The system will then powerdown properly.

However, after the removal, on all subsequent reboots as the drivers are initializing there is a brief moment of video corruption -- this corruption did not occur with the the SP2 native drivers, nor did it occur with the udate drivers and QuickDesk software. But by the time the logon screen is presented, video display is normal and stable, and there seem to be no further problems.

I have tried downloading all appropriate Matrox G-series drivers and rolling things back version by version. Every Matrox driver package with the QuickDesk software re-introduces the powerdown issue.

So the options would seem to be:

a) Don't do the driver update from the MS website in the first place.

b) If the update has been done, uninstall it and put up with a half second or so of video corruption at start up.

c) Reload the affected systems, and don't the driver update.

Option b) appears to be the most practical solution.

:wave:

____________________________________________

http://i1.tinypic.com/n5ngxw.jpg

It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[NooNoo]

Thanks house