Can anyone Repair a Voodoo 5 5500?

[Chips]

Hi there,

I will offer a reasonable amount of money to anyone who can repair a Voodoo 5 5500.

I will pay for shipping to and from your location.

Anyone experienced people here who have done that, or if you could recommend me to someone who can do it would be great.

Thanks!

[ArchAngelCD]

IMO it will cost you less if you buy a used Voodoo5 5500 off Ebay than it will cost you to fix a broken card.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=40157&item=5205964871&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Currently there are also 3 PCI Voodoo5 5500s available on Ebay. It's been a long while since I've seen more than 1 PCI Voodoo5 on Ebay at one time.

[Chips]

Yeah, I agree but I guess it just doesn't hurt asking - you never know!

[Caravel]

What exactly is wrong with it?  If it has any dead chips you may as well sling it in the bin.

[Chips]

Well, the problem is that a very dishonest person in ebay sold me an AUS$140 card he called "UNTESTED" but when I received it was CLEARLY FRIED and he at least knew it, but I'm fairly convinced from his abusive email content that he did it and wouldnt admit it.

I'm suspecting AT LEAST either the voltage regulators have been blown due to a power surge and/or one/many/all the PCI BUS controller chips (those little IDT chips on the reverse side) were fried as well.

The reason I know this is that the card does not even respond to a hardware level PCI SCAN which should return the manufacturer ID "3DFX", the device class "MULTIMEDIA", and the device subclass "VGA".  Additionally the 3dfx BIOS flash utility cannot see the flash RAM on the card (understandable!)

It could also be possible the GPU's are fried, but I can't tell because the PCI Scan cant even get past the PCI bus controllers on the card, so I can't run diagnostics on the card's components.

I'm only a humble software engineer, so surface mount component diagnostics and repair jobs have exceeded my qualifications.

I guess the first part of repairing the card would be diagnosing the problem.  And yes, if GPUs or memory has been fried, that means GAME OVER, but the IDT chips, capacitors, resisters etc are still available.

[benna]

i think paying AUS$140 for an untested voodoo5 is too much
why you didn't ask a photo of the card before buy it?

[Caravel]

You've been had.  NEVER buy anything described as "untested" as it actually mean: "not working".

You may be right about the cards condition and if so there's not much you can do.  Leave negative feedback and try relisting the card on ebay as "DEAD", because some people may want it for spares.

And yes you payed a bit too much for it mate.  I still haven't forgotten that idiot that sold me a dead Voodoo2 then tried to say it was my fault as I'd obviously "handled it too much" while I was wasting my time trying to get the card he'd fried to work.

Better luck next time.

[Chips]

I agree.

I normally dont bid on items that do not have "100% tested and working" or "Pulled from working system due to upgrade" etc etc, but these cards rarely appear on ebay in Australia so it really was due to a lack of options.

I do prefer to buy locally to avoid extra postage costs, exchange rate differences, more chance of complications, etc, but it turns out I think to get a Voodoo 5 it's cheaper and more reliable to get them from the USA/Canada area as there are more there.

I am considering buying an unboxed version, fully testing it, and then selling it with the fried card's box as a boxed mac voodoo5.  I am sure that will sell well here.

[ArchAngelCD]

Chips,
Sorry to hear you got beat on Ebay. I have bought a lot on Ebay and have been lucky so far to deal with honest sellers.

Now for Ebay... You should submit a complaint because saying "untested" doesn't give the seller the right to sell you something that is clearly damaged. That is fraud IMO.

[Nightbird]

selling it with the fried card's box as a boxed mac voodoo5

Is your card a mac version ?
So that explains also the price..

[Chips]

Yes, it's a MAC version.

[MUDASS]

I did damage my v5 ounce (broken capacitor).  I knew someone in an electronic school at that time, so I left them my card and the students fix it...   when they got at this module 6 months later...
They have all the up to date equipement and learning to use it.  They did a perfect job and it didn't cost me a penny, since it was a contribution for their academic!

[Chips]

I work for a large systems company and I gave my card to a Hardware engineer here to have a look at.

He's identified a part that is blown which causes the card not to start because it's connected to the RESET line (see http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tps3801j25.html ) which is still available.

Problem is that I think this is the first layer of the onion that will reveal another problem after this is fixed.  I am going to get around to testing it out at some stage.

[3DKen]

Hi, I have a VooDoo 5 5500 that is still in the original retail box, practically brand new.  I obsess over babying my computer hardware.  I would sell it to you and I still have the original receipt.  I'm in the U.S. too so you don't have to deal with someone in another country.  I'll even include a free VooDoo 3000 card, (I think it even has S-Video out).  The only reason I'm selling this card is because I can't get it to install on a Win9x box.  I keep throwing a Fatal Exception error.  The factory driver won't install on Win95, due to some sort of "Incorrect Language" error.  Or if anyone knows how to bypass these errors, I'd be just as happy to keep the card.

[3DKen]

Oh my apologies I wasn't paying close enough attention.  My card is a AGP card for PC's.  Feel free to email if anyone has any ideas or interest in purchasing the card.