V5 5500 strange crashes

[diyerzheng]

Hello there

I've recently got a V5 5500 PCI w/ dvi output. Amigamerlin 2.9 has been set up sucessfully in my win 98se w/ DX9c redist, and the display modes under all resolution in desktop works well. But strange crashes happenes when I ran tghe D3D dxdiag, I got a blank screen(basically nothing) and my system freezes.

I tried to ghost the system back to a clean 98se and installed Amigamerlin 2.9 w/ DX 8.0. When running dxdiag, the software acc. DX7 test could be passed, sometimes w/ some white lines horizontally across the screen, but the system still freezes when it goes to hardware acc. test.

And w/ both DX9c or DX80 the system freezes when I run e Quake 3 arena, picture appears to be distorted colours.

Another strange thing is after i installed e Amigamerlin 2.9 by running setup and follow on reboot installing 3dfxtools and all that, my Voodoo driver appears to be "Amigamerlin 2.5 for Voodoo 3/4/5" in my device management, i have to manualy update e driver by directing it to the Amigamerlin 2.9/win9x folder to make it 2.9.

Does that ring any alarm? Million thx 4 any help.

My system config:
PIII 500
ASUS P3BF @ latest bios
V5 5500 DVI @ 1.18 bios
samsung pc133 128mb*2

PS: my problem seems similar to this post http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1286, bt i din find any solutions. Btw dxdiag and quake 3 works well on the system w/ Matrox G200 + single Gainward Voodoo 2.

[MUDASS]

Just checking...  Oftenly, new V5 owners miss to connect the power supply to the Voodoo board...   ..."Ahem" I was one of them "ahem"...

If it's only that, you're lucky and it's a fast fix.

[diyerzheng]

I wish too I could've be so lucky bt unfortunetely it's actually connected to a decent power supply.

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

I think that he was talking about connecting the Molex power connector to the V5 Card when it is installed in the Motherboard. If you installed it in the machine then you must have connected of the of Disk Drive D type power connectors to the socket on the V5 Card.

SFFT

[diyerzheng]

Oh sorry abt e confusion, I meant e Molex is connected. Actually at e 1st time I use this card I missed out this bit and it won't even boot up..

I was just wonderin, could this problem caused by any faulty bit on e card?

[Rolo01]

Did you try to set the V5 to single chip mode ?
If this helps, it could be a hint that one VSA100 is dying...

[diyerzheng]

Might be. How to set it to single chip mode?

I'm just a 3dfx starter n not very sure abt e configs...

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

It is probably worth trying the last official 3dfx drivers for Win9x to see if it is a driver problem.

SFFT

[bloodworm]

uninstall your drivers, and then reinstall. the AM 2.5's look to be stepping on your V5's toes.

[diyerzheng]

Ok finally problem spotted, dxdiag passed when Anti-Aliasing set to single chip only, Quake 3 worked as well. I noticed that in dxdiag the Vram it estimated is only 30.5 mb, so does it says quite resonably that one chip and 32mb of vram is dead n im only gettin half of the performance of this card? The 3fdxtool says there's 64mb of vrams though. The Quake 3 seems a bit laggy in 1024*768, I'll try e benchmark n see if I get the right performance. So anyone has any idea how much fps could this card get under 1024*768?

[diyerzheng]

Benchmark rslts:

3DMARK 2001SE: 915 (defalt settings) with Dx9c

Quake3 demo001:
36.5 fps @ 1024*768
42.5 fps @ 800*600

Quake3 test configs:
colour depth: default
geometric detail: medium
texture detail: 2nd level
MesaFx

Does these rslts seem like a V5 5500 with 2 chips running under my com's specs? Or clearly one chip is dead? Btw in 3dmark's system info it says there is 32mb of vram...

[benna]

i had your same speed on my p3 500 with 256mb ram and v3 3000 so i think a chip is dead

[SuperFurryFurryThing]

I would still try the 3dfx drivers.

SFFT

[Nightbird]

I noticed that in dxdiag the Vram it estimated is only 30.5 mb,

this is normal

Dxdiag doesn't know the sli

[diyerzheng]

Well SuperFurryFurryThings, last bt not least I put the official 3dfx 1.04.00 WHQL on. Unluckily still e same situation, dxdiag only work w/ Anti-Aliasing set to singl chip.

Benchmark rslts w/ 3dfx official 1.04.00:

3dmark 2001se: 844 (default settings)

Quake3 arena:
43.7 fps @640*480
43.2 fps @800*600
41.9 fps @1024*768

Strange enough the fps under 1024*768 increased quite a bit w/ the old official driver while 3dmark  is scorin less, bt I think it's still pretty low for a 5500. So that's it, maybe I really got a dead chip? Is there any other way of checking if the 2 chips r both workin?