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Path: utzoo!mnetor!george
From: george@mnetor.UUCP (George Hart)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ATI EGA Wonder Card
Message-ID: <4242@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Sep-87 09:06:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.4242
Posted: Fri Sep 11 09:06:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 12:10:56 EDT
References: <357@xios.XIOS.UUCP>
Reply-To: george@mnetor.UUCP (George Hart)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 56

In article <357@xios.XIOS.UUCP> dont@sdn.UUCP (Don Taylor) writes:
>2.  MS Word 3.1 does not work in EGA mode.  Lots of flashing screens.  ATI
>    claim this is a bug in Word.  They could be right.  It works fine in 
>    Herc. mode which is ok if you don't want Word in colour.

Interesting, Word 3.0 doesn't appear to have the problem.

>3.  2-3 programs run incredibly slowly in EGA mode.  I remember the setup
>    programs for MS mouse stuff and a shareware DB package called INSTANT.

I'm curious, are these programs using real EGA mode or are they forcing
the board into its CGA mode?  No idea why this should make a difference
unless they're using the BIOS calls...

>4.  I have tried it on a composite mono monitor with an anti-glare screen.
>    I think that the interlace flicker is unacceptable.  Buy a cheap TTL
>    monitor and save your eyes.

My Multisync has a problem with color bleeding in high-intensity
characters.  May be a problem with my particular monitor since it
happened with two different ATI cards on my monitor nor could I
detect the problem on a friend's machine with a similar video setup.

>5.  Versions of the ATI EGA BIOS prior to 1.08 (I was told) failed the
>    PC Mag. EGA compatibility test.  If you have one of these, then ATI will
>    send you a replacement ePROM if you talk to them nicely.

About 1 week after I installed my card, the screen went white, then
blue-white, then red and then black...with a certain "final" feeling to
it.  At this point, the machine wouldn't even reboot.  Fortunately, ATI
is a block away so I carried the card in and talked to the technician.
He couldn't find a thing wrong with it but he replaced the PROM's (to 1.08
I think) and the card has worked well since.  Infant mortality in the
PROMs or a latent assembly defect are the only explanations I can
give.

I also asked the technician about the comment in the documentation
about the PC BIOS revision level.  Apparently, the (revision date,
revision number,serial number) combination listed in the documentation
is incorrect.

The only symptom of a BIOS problem that I observe; on every warm boot I
get a message to the effect "...coprocessor not installed. Emulation
may not work properly" but thus far, it seems relatively harmless.  One
of these days, I'll cough up the bucks to upgrade my BIOS and see if it
goes away.
-- 


Regards,

George Hart, Computer X Canada Ltd.
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