3310MX-AP Windows 2000 installation: VGA driver problem

[Spiralgalaxy5]

Hi, I successfully installed Win2kSP4 to a SD card - all OK except the graphics. I got it to a point where M2010 was displayed under the "display adaptor" in device manager with a warning exclamation mark (code 31 - unable to load driver) - this was using the drivers downloaded from Robosavvy. My first attempt was with drivers that were included on the CD with the PC - these were "D1010" and appeared to be incompatible - device manager was showing a yellow question mark (unkown PCI device).

I tried reloading the driver of course, uninstalled display adaptor, re-installed, generally messed about. Then, after forcing Windows to load another adaptor version I succeeded in making Windows unable to start. Oh dear.

There seem to be several versions of VGA drivers about for these Vortex 86MX/MX+ devices. I found some at http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/ebox/ which have different build numbers but look to be the same otherwise.

Has anyone else tried to use Win2k with a 33xx eBox and got the VGA display to work? Which drivers should I be using?

Thanks

[Spiralgalaxy5]

Update: the drivers that I have been able to install, that are recognised and are shown in Device manager under "display" (but fail to actually load - code 31) are shown as "M2010" or "M2012" (depending on which set I install). I have emailed DMP to ask if anyone there knows what to do.

I also found this on the DMP website:
http://www.compactpc.com.tw/upload/prod ... Driver.rar
- this download contains another M2012 version (M2012_R4.msi), but I couldn't make it work with this either, although I suspect the driver files themselves are unchanged in this set.

I now have three different sets of VGA driver installation available to me: M2010_R15, M2012_R2 (Robosavvy) and M2012_R4 (DMP).

[PedroR]

Hi SpiralGalaxy5

There seem to be several versions of VGA drivers about for these Vortex 86MX/MX+ devices.

Before getting in detail into your issue, it is important to note that VGA is different on VortexMX and Vortex86MX+ and drivers for one SoC/processor will not work on the other.

- Vortex86MX (used in eBox3350MX for example) has dedicated VGA graphics memory (32Mb).

- Vortex86MX+ (used in ebox 3310MX) has shared VGA memory, meaning the VGA memory is shared with the main memory and the amount allocated can be changed in RAM.

For this reason, you need to make sure you're downloading the correct driver version because the VGA silicon will work differently.


I've looked into the driver versions you said you have and:

M2010_R15 - this probably won't work on Vortex86MX+. Afaik this is for the Vortex86MX (not the plus version).

M2012_R2 (Robosavvy) - this is the one we distribute for Vortex86MX+ (ebox 3310mx) for installing on Windows XP.
We haven't tested it on win 2k though.

M2012_R4 (DMP) - this is probably a new release of the driver but I could not confirm if it's a release for Vortex86MX or MX+.


I've had a closer look at the DMP website and apparently the newer processors seem to have less and less information about compatibility with Windows 2000.

If you purchased the box from us (RoboSavvy), please send us an email with your order number and the reference to this post in case DMP doesn't come back with an answer.

Regards
Pedro.

[Spiralgalaxy5]

I've had a closer look at the DMP website and apparently the newer processors seem to have less and less information about compatibility with Windows 2000.

If you purchased the box from us (RoboSavvy), please send us an email with your order number and the reference to this post in case DMP doesn't come back with an answer.

Hi Pedro, yes the 3310 was purchased recently from Robosavvy - I'll email you off-forum with details. I've just added a SATA drive to the unit. I had a reply from DMP today saying that they would look into it... Agree with your comments on drivers (2010 doesn't work and the driver on the CD supplied with the unit is completely incompatible as well). OS compatibility of later MX+ processor does seem less, although I suspect that Win 9x would run OK, again excepting the display driver.

On the other hand older OS are slim in comparison with later Windows OS and will run really nice and quick on an eBox, so I'm hoping there will be an easy fix. Unfortunately I do need to use Windows for the project I'm involved with.

Thanks
Spiralgalaxy5

[Spiralgalaxy5]

Hi Pedro,

I've sent an email to the Robosavvy tech support email address. Thanks.

[Spiralgalaxy5]

A nice chap at DMP has sent me a 2012-R5 driver set that he says should work : I'll re-install Win2k (on the HDD this time) and let you know how I get on. If driver OK I'll forward to the Robosavvy tech support email address so you can do further testing if you wish and make available to others via your website.

[Spiralgalaxy5]

I couldn't get any of the M2012-Rx drivers to work so found another way - Hope this helps somebody:

http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbemp.htm

Download the "STABLE" Release version 2007.10.19:
http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbempg.zip

Unzip the archive and update your existing (malfunctioning) display driver using the ..\VBE20\W2K\PNP folder as the source - Windows suggests that your existing driver is newer / more suitable but ignore that and make sure the vbemp driver gets installed. Although a reboot may not be prompted by Windows you will need to reboot - right-clicking on the desktop to change settings before a reboot will produce an error.

If you already tried the M2012 drivers, you might also want to use msconfig to disable utility.exe (startup entry by M2012 driver installation). I went through the registry removing references to the RDC graphics stuff before installing VBEMP but this is probably overkill.

Other driver files from VBEMP may also work but I have not tried them. 3310MX-AP is now working happily at 1024x768 32-bit colour. I've reserved the maximum (64MB) for graphics in the BIOS. Maybe higher resolution is available using these drivers but again, I haven't tried.

One thing I noticed when I was testing the M2012 driver with XP Pro was that although the OEM driver worked, Device Manager continued to report an Unknown Device. With the VBEMP driver, in Win2k anyway, Device Manager looks "clean". I haven't tried VBEMP with XP but I would think the drivers should work fine - all NTOS types are in the zip file. There is also a VBEMP 9x project for true retro enthusiasts. As the EBOX comes with Ethernet driver for 98SE and Realtek Win9x WDM files can also be found on the internet there is a good chance of making a 9x box, if that's your thing .

As a quick performance test I tried the Pinball game included with Windows 2000 and it was playable full screen - more than enough performance for most common use of this little box, I would say...

[Spiralgalaxy5]

Addendum: Before I did any of the above I went to Add/Remove programs and uninstalled the M2012 graphics stuff. Then I uninstalled the M2012 display adaptor in Device Manager.