Need Help Building Voodoo 5 5500 AGP Rig

[SavageNorseman]

Hi guys,

I need some help regarding my 3DFX rig I'm building. This has been a project of mine for a couple of years now and I just got around to buying some more hardware and trying to get this thing assembled once and for all.

I bought an AGP Voodoo 5 5500 on eBay in (I want to say 2009) for about $16 USD minus shipping. However the seller did not know much about the card and had improperly mislabeled it as AGP 8x and said that the card worked, but did not provide a screen shot or anything. Well I bought an 8x AGP Pentium 4 motherboard and then found out quickly that the AGP connecter on this Voodoo 5 card is NOT 8x or AGP 3.0/1.5v compliant and is instead AGP 1.0/3.3V. Well the P4 system got built anyway, minus the Voodoo 5 and I was out several hundred dollars on that build, but it became a computer for my mom so all is well I guess.

Next I found that an old Systemax PC of my grandma's from 1999-ish had a Matsonic motherboard with a universal AGP slot that would accept the Voodoo 5... I thought great! I'll use this board and build another system that works this time!

So now my present situation is this, The board had a univeral AGP slot yes, but the manual says it is AGP 2.0 compliant which means it's only 1.5V right? So no dice again?

Do I really need to get a AGP 1.0 compliant board to run this graphics card in? If so what do you recommend. I have read several threads on this board about Mobo/Voodoo combinations, but most of them pertain to the Voodoo 5 6000 which seems to run on 1.5v - correct me if I'm wrong.

The system I built is:
Corsair 430W CX PSU
Matsonic 8308E Motherboard with AGP Universal Slot (AGP 2.0 compliant)
512MB x 2 PC133 SDRAM
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1.666GHZ (Down-clocked by Mobo to 1.25GHZ)
40GB Seagate Baracuda HD 7200RPM
CD Reader / Floppy Drive

Had Windows XP on it but no driver would work (I get a black screen as soon as Windows loads) 3DFX Bios info shows when computer boots, bios screen shows up OK and Windows loading screen comes up, but when XP goes to desktop I get a black screen.

Also tried Windows 98 and Second Edition. Once the 3DFX official drivers are loaded I only get black lines on a white background with a white box for a mouse cursor.

Seems to me the Mobo is not supplying enough voltage to the Voodoo 5, OR the card was damaged when I bought it on eBay.

I tried to post my Picasa Web Album here for you to see pics of the Mobo which details the Board AGP slot and also 3 pages of the manual that talk about the specifications.

Any help would be much appreciated.

In the event that I cannot use this motherboard in this build, What AMD Athlon XP based board can I use with my 2000+ 1.6GHz processor and the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP 3.3V? I do not want to buy a PCI Voodoo (They are too expensive and not even available now) And I want to see the full performance of this card.

Thanks again, here's the link to the web-album.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105785166700701313048/MatsonicMotherboardInfo?authkey=Gv1sRgCO6Y8-Gu2JDxEw&feat=directlink

[SavageNorseman]

Ok so I did some more research and poking around on the web and found out that universal AGP slots should provide either 3.3v or 1.5v signaling voltage to an AGP card and that 3.3v is always present on this connector, it just auto switches to the correct voltage depending on what type of card you insert or by the card's keying. So assuming my Matsonic motherboard is undamaged that really only leaves the Voodoo 5 5500 from eBay as the possible bad link in the project. I might have to look into buying another one. Currently there is one with a low starting bid of around $10.50 on eBay right now which the seller says is OEM and a working pull but that's all the info he provides and nothing but the card is included in the auction. I am a little wary of buying another "cheap" Voodoo card on eBay as I see these things going for $90+ is that what I should really expect to pay?

Anyhow I have yet to secure a "Full retail copy" of Windows 98SE for testing and have only had access to Windows XP, Ubuntu 11.04 (latest 32-bit release) and what was left of Windows 98 Vanilla on the old Maxtor 20GB HDD that was in the Systemax when I rebuilt it. The Win 98 install had suffered a virus or had otherwise had some missing system files and was a little flakey, so I used a "Upgrade edition" Win 98SE CD I had laying around to repair the OS and then attempted to install the official 3DFX drivers and run the card, but that's when I got the Zebra stripes and no real display. Again XP only shows a black screen with drivers loaded and Ubuntu won't even fully complete the install on this configuration (too old?) or something else is going haywire.

I guess I should also mention that the motherboard I am using only supports up to a 1.4GHz AMD Processor and I put a 1.66GHz Athlon XP 2000+ in it (Brand new retail) but it runs underclocked to 1.25GHz which may be causing other problems...

Those are my thoughts for now, this project continues to trouble me and I must complete the project eventually! It's been too much time and money to give up now :/

[pierrickuk]

Well I bought an 8x AGP Pentium 4 motherboard[...] I was out several hundred dollars on that build.

This sounds VERY expensive to me.
Anyway, I quickly checked online and it seems your motherboard has an integrated video. Does everything work fine after removing the Voodoo and using that integrated video (SIS chipset). Use only one stick of RAM, also, just in case.
If you experience the same problems, it may be that your motherboard doesn't support the Athlon XP series core.
In that case, a bios update might save you... or an old Athlon/Duron.

On the other hand, if everything works fine without the voodoo, then your combination of hardware is the problem, or the voodoo.
Time to look out for a compatible motherboard. Check e-bay, ask around; on a good day they're just waiting for you at the corner of the street...
Good luck!

[SavageNorseman]

Thanks pierri, No the motherboard is not "totally" compatible with the Athlon XP Processor I put in it, or at least not one that operates at 266FSB and 1.66GHz overall. The board was designed to max out with an Athlon (XP?) 1.4GHz probably at 200FSB. The processor DOES work and so does the onboard video for Windows XP I even tested it playing Diablo II and it worked in 3D mode. The only drawback is because the FSB of the processor I am using is not supported by my motherboard it cannot completely identify the Processor in the BIOS and downclocks it to 1.25GHz automatically with no way to increase the FSB even by jumpers.

I am really starting to suspect my problem HAS been the Voodoo 5 i bought from eBay all along, but it's possible that a processor incompatibility could be the issue as well. I would not mind having a newer mobo that can support the 1.6GHz Athlon XP and a Voodoo card as well.

Currently I have my eye out for a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP. I saw one go by on ebay but the guy didn't have the I/O header and I didn't want to have to hunt that down too and pay another $15 Dollars or so on top of the cost of the board so I let it pass.

I also saw a SOYO Dragon Platinum go by which was nice including the box but the AGP Pro slot on it looked strange and I wasn't sure if it would support 3.3v Voodoo 5 5500's.

What do you guys recommend as the best Athlon XP based AGP Voodoo Board?

[pierrickuk]

Ok, so your motherboard/cpu seems to work fine.
With the Voodoo plugged in but no voodoo drivers installed, it works; the problem arises after you install the drivers. Which drivers?

There are different driver sets available here, from my experience, the ones I had the least problems with were the ones by Amigamerlin. You can also try the latest official ones.

What happens if you start in Safe mode?

I didn't find much info on the net but maybe there's an option in your bios on a jumper on the card for AGP voltage. You could check that.

Can't you test the V5 in some old computer (maybe some friendly local computer hardware shop, some friend/colleague etc), just to make sure it's fine?

As for the best motherboard for an Athlon XP, a quick search on this very forum and I found:
http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=119.

One last thought, you could maybe update the Voodoo5 bios, if yours is older than the latest release (also available on this forum).

Let us know and good luck

[TheJohnKerrys]

http://www.matsonic.com/Matsonic_Motherboard_Socket_A.php read the PDF about ya motherboard...Lots of good info

The PDF says nothing about athlon XP support only Athlon/Duron..

Socket-462 Processor Support
Supports AMD Athlon/Duron processors
Supports 200 MHz Front-Side Bus

One question..Did you install Motherboard chpset drivers??Any yellow bangs(?) in ya device manager??

I would try another CPU and the onboard video to get the OS installed and motherboard drivers in and fool with cards later..Also dont forget that after you install the OS and mobo drivers to enable UDMA in windows 98se!!Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager right click then Property/settings for ya CD's and Hard drive then chk the box that says UDMA and reboot

[m14radu]

best mobo's for voodoo5 are from EPOX: 8K5A2, 8K5A3.
Next i would recomend the MSI KT3 ultra.

With this boards i have no problems with voodoo5

[TheJohnKerrys]

I had my 5500 working killer on my Biostar P4SFA with a P4 2.4 & 98se with no issues but my card is half blown and will only run in 1 gpu mode(V4500)