Please help : Problems with millenium II and psone lcd

PierreLo · 06-14-2004, 06:37 AM

Hi,

I'm new here and I have already learnt a lot from you guys. I just got myself an old Matrox Millenium II 4MB PCI, but I can't het it to work. I followed starfox advices, some other guides I found on the Web, but no way. Before that, I succeeded with a Radeon 9600 Pro, with the Powerstrip timings as recommended in a guide by Serio, but now with the matrox, I cannot get anything correctly synchronized. First, the pixel clock will not go below 30Hz, everytime I try to set it to a value below (the usual 15 I used with the radeon), it just jumps back to 30.xxx.
Then, after a few changes in Horizontal and vertical sync values, it all hangs and I must reboot the computer.

please can someone help me and provide me valid Powerstrip settings for the MilleniumII and a psone lcd screen ?

Thanks a lot !

PierreLo

Gauderio · 06-15-2004, 11:28 AM

I am having the same problem. I get an image but its split in two, the image is not streched enough.

MatrixPC · 06-15-2004, 11:40 AM

By using VNC or other program to remote control carPC and post a print screen of Powerstrip setting (like I did in other thread) so that some of us maybe able to help you guy out. Images such as VGA->LCD solder point or the modding part will also help. Sometime you just miss a solder point and didn't realize that. I had that problem and thanks to my bro he pointed it out base on the circuit and drawing laying on the floor.

Mage · 06-15-2004, 12:17 PM

the M II CAN'T go below 30hz Unless you HACK the M II Bios. There's a post about it a bit back here's the post
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...ght=psone+bios

I could not get this to work on MY MII I bought a Geforce 5 instead. I also made a Driver for the PSONE to try to get the hz down it was somewhat seccessful.

Mage

Gauderio · 06-15-2004, 01:43 PM

Hey Mage, could you get me a copy of that driver? Also, you said you were "somewhat successful", what went wrong?

Mage · 06-15-2004, 04:30 PM

I'll have to remake the driver I formated the drive so I can post it when I can for you guys. uhm as far as "somewhat successful" I got it to Work save that the pixel clock was at 30hz and if would flip slowly I belive here's my post about what I did and everything that happend (it got off track somewhat though)
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/lcd-display/26080-help-psone-lcd-mod.html

Mage

PierreLo · 06-15-2004, 05:14 PM

THanks a lot to you guys for your answers (both here and in PM).
In the meantime, I gave up on this matrox and I'm trying to get me an old PCI radeon card, since it seems it works fine on my Radeon 9600 Pro so I guess my best bet is another radeon card.
I also have tried with a S3 virge, but couldn't succeed (csync is not supported on this board by the way).

PierreLo

Mage · 06-15-2004, 05:17 PM

all the s3's (trio64,steath,2000,3d) dont work. also any ATI card before the radeon's dont (the mach64 based ones) and I could not get a Geforce 1 nor an otherone (for get the name) to work.

any radion should work but I think the best is a TNT 2 pci I belive.

Mage

Gauderio · 06-15-2004, 05:36 PM

I tried a 32Mb TNT Vanta and it worked great. I just put the settings for Arcade and the image was almost perfect. Just have to put the 270ohm resistors to make the image brighter, but other than that its perfect. My only concern now is that it actually gets quite hot, which means it takes quite a bit of power. I'll have to test it out with my ITPS to make sure it can handle. I used my 52x cdrom the other day and teh ITPS couldn't quite handle it and the computer was restarting when it tried to read the cd.

PierreLo · 06-16-2004, 03:55 AM

Quite interesting. I never thought about TNT. Maybe I'll try to get one on ebay. Thanks for the tip.

PierreLo

Gauderio · 06-16-2004, 10:24 AM

I played with the TNT Vanta card and it was not that great though. The graphics are not as good as I expected. Its kind of hard to read. I cannot read the numbers on powerstrip at all. Also, it does not have C-sync, which I am not sure if that is why the image is kind of crappy.
I think I'll end up having to use a Matrox Mystique instead. Its only 2Mb, but it should do the job. I just hope its enough memory to play DVD's.

By the way, ITPS handled fine the card (32Mb TNT Vanta), laptop hard drive and laptop dvd rom.

PierreLo · 06-16-2004, 10:32 AM

Gauderio,

I also tried a Matrox Mystique and never could succeed. Couldn't get correct sync, no matter what values I tried. If you find powerstrip timings that work, please feel free to share them !

Up to now, here are my results :

S3 Virge GX : no way (picture can be seen on the screen, but never stops moving around and is cut in 4 pieces). maybe a csync circuit would help since the board doesn't do csync.

Matrox millenium II : nothing recognizable, pixel clock won't go below 30, one way ticket to the garbage can.

Radeon 9600Pro : works fine, but picture is still abit dark and some "red artefacts " can be seen. Desktop size is also incorrect (overscan).

Matrox Mystique : image is OK, but it keeps moving vertically and is split in two parts (left part of the image is on the right side of the screen, and right part is on the left side of the screen with a big black area in the middle (frint porch seems to be centered on the screen , if I can say so)

Don't hesitate to continue sharing your experience. We'll finally win over this damn LCD screen

PierreLo

Gauderio · 06-16-2004, 10:38 AM

What you got with the Matrox Mystique is what happened to me with an 8Mb Millenium II. The image was split and I could not get the pixel clock to go bellow 30Mz. I was going to by a Mystique from eBay today, but now I am wondering if I should. I've seen people that used and it looks great. So I wonder if its a wiring/resistor issue.

Also, with the TNT Vanta I could not get the image to stay in one place. Every so often the image would slide down. It's really annoying. When you first load windows, the image has a line in the middle of the screen and you have to center it. And later on it just slides down, doesn't stay fixed. Every time i boot it up, I have to center the image. So I think I am almost done with that card.

PierreLo · 06-16-2004, 05:11 PM

Well, if you know people who succeeded wit a Mystique, would you please be kind enough to ask and give me their Powerstrip timings ? This sure would help.
THanks

PierreLo

Gauderio · 06-17-2004, 10:35 AM

Check this thread
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...t=26080&page=2

Its a link I got from MatrixPC. He uses a Mystique and said that his image is clearer because he uses the circuit to convert Hsync and Vsync to Csync (even though his card has Csync). My TNT Vanta works fine, but I can't really read the small fonts and MatrixPC's picture looks better than mine. I'll make the circuit today and let you guys know how it goes. Its pretty cheap, probably under $4 total. I hope it fixes the problem of having the image sliding down every so often.