My Voodoo 2 arrived yesterday - besides getting it out of the box for a gander, I've not touched it and probably won't touch it for a few weeks. Might get a photo in the next few days though.
Have you tried running mojo.exe in dos to see if you get any errors it will show basic info about tmu and fbi chips
I'm working with a beta program called Witchery, which is much more advanced and detailed than Mojo. You can see early versions of Witchery running in certain Bits Und Bolts videos on Youtube, e.g.
Sounds very useful, its been years since I did some repairs on voodoo 1 and 2 but I did find mojo was basic. Yes it did narrow the problem down but would been nice to get a little bit more
Can someone identify 12MB vs 8MB on these? I just did my first SLI with a pair of CT 6670 cards. One has a stack of RAM on the front and rear, the other is single sided with 4 toward the bottom rear. My guess is the bottom is an 8MB as the memory chips are the same type on both cards? I have a reference single card with a 12MB label (pictured) in another machine. It shows 8MB texture memory while the SLI enabled has 4MB.
Your 3rd voodoo 2 card probably isn't reference, as all the reference Voodoo 2's I know have memory both side (or pads for memory if 8meg model)
Thanks. It will have to do. I have 2 others (2000 model) with 12MB labels but they won't SLI. They have very similar 1MB chips on them, so single sided, but won't play together or 1 card isn't detecting.
I was able to upgrade my 8meg cards with chips found off aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007471856704.html That said, I can make no guarentees here, the ones I bought worked, and I tested them socketed into a different video card first to make sure they had a good chance of working. Before I soldered them to the voodoo 2 card. I used flux, solder, and wick to clean the unused memory pads on the voodoo card first, then ran fluxed solder over all the pads to put a bit of solder onto each pad. Then hot aired the chips onto it.
They all visibly look identical. Some SMDs on the reverse side but otherwise identical bar the memory. I'll drop more pics.
Cool, not sure why those 2 x 12meg single sided cards don't want to SLI together. I assume you have tried the fastvoodoo 4.6 drivers from: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/drivers-for-voodoo-2.html These let you run non-identical voodoo 2 cards together. Although, you may find that the slight overclock they do (to 93mhz) will cause instability, so you might need to reset it back to 90mhz.
Theres something wrong with one of those 12MB cards. I think it's the one with a jiggly leg on the FBI. Ugh. No image then a reseat made it light up but went black after starting a game. Similar to a V3 3000. Posts and gets to windows but theres no image. The good 12MB card is a bit dark in quake 2. Could be the cable. The drivers used on both machines are using fast voodoo 2 4.6. I might have to get some extra help with these for repairs. There are now 3 non working V2s and the V3.
Wish I was somewhere near. I can definitely resolder loose legs on the Voodoo 2. Don't have the tools to fix the BGA chips though (which is what a V3 is). For the Dark image, there might be a problem with the DAC inputs ... maybe a bad/missing bias resistor.
The list of patients has grown. The 8MB card is drawing artifacts in fog environments so it's down to one working creative card + the dark one. The dark card is one of the 2 reference 12MB. The card that goes black or intermittently doesnt post has 2 jiggly legs. One looks like it is touching another leg. Possibly the cause? 6 faulty patients in total. Starting to look viable for postage repairs!
Have found a bit of time today to get the Voodoo 2 out of its box and take a gander. It is a Gainward Voodoo 2 12MB, Part Number 9803-00 - haven't put it into the intended PC yet, but I've got it on the bench ready for install.
Time to buy an $80 hot air station and learn some tricks. The v3 might recover with a flash. The bioses lose their bits eventually.
Like anything, faulty Voodoos can be quick repairs, or they can be not so quick. Lack of analytics and information is part of it. MOJO.EXE is far from transparent and can often be a brick wall. Even the in-development Witchery diagnostic is at this stage only able to access a minority of areas on the card, and that's had many hundreds of hours research poured into it. I spent about 50 hours on a faulty Voodoo2 recently, and I'm not quite finished, but the most likely outcome is that I've spent 50 hours eliminating every other possible thing, and the only remaining explanation will be internal damage to a certain part of the main Chuck IC. Physical damage and having been run with the resulting shorts likely put paid to it. On the other hand I've had another one just arrive which looks physically quite pristine, and my first order of business after a thorough microscope inspection is going to be a quality resoldering of the 3 main ICs, because those 256+208+208=672 pins worth of connections are near the top of the list when it comes to hopeful fixes. If that doesn't work then we sigh, grow some patience, and out will come the meters.
Probably said already in this thread. Had a dead V2 in a drawer for 20 years at my uncles. Totally forgot about it. Anyway, found it last year, had more skills, figured out it was a tiny ferrite bead. The shipping costs more than one bead. Ute: just poke around with a multimeter. First for 0v or other weird non standard numbers. Standard numbers are ~12v,~5v,~3.3v, and maybe ~2.5. 1.8 is a modern number. Also there are plenty of guides detailing the values of components
Cool. Yeah I think I know the location of them. Getting a few presents under the tree, one may include said (upgraded) device. I'll poke around there. I've also found someone local who knows his way around testing gear. I think vswitch had a similar problem with his voodoo 2. He was also using debug software and batch files to narrow things down a bit.
When the time comes, discuss the details here if you like. Even in advance, if you want advice to accompany your actions, rather than follow it! I'll chime in with specific info or tips from my ongoing Voodoo2 adventures where possible.
