Voodoo 5 5500 AGP problems

[JosiasMartins]

Hi

I have an V5 5500 AGP and an ASROCK M266A, i buy this motherboard because this work with V5 (see this article: www.pcgameshardware.de/3dfx-Voodoo-Hardware-255488/Specials/3dfx-Voodoo-Retro-Special-1246582).

But, i have some problems to start 3D games after i install any driver. Using the Windows native Driver, all Direct 3D games work fine (slowly), but after install an Amigamerlin or SFFT driver, i have the error below.






Any idea to solve this? My voodoo is damaged or its a driver problem?


PS: Into Windows, the V5 works fine... How i disable one of VSA100 to teste then?

[Glide]

Hi JosiasMartins, you're welcome here. The behaviour you've shared with us looks as an issue on hardware side (memory chip?).

In my humble opinion, when you're requiring high performance, using tuned settings by the device driver, your Voodoo5 graphics card shows off this problem.

Can you try the card using a new (or certainly reliable) PSU? Another question: can you mount the Voodoo5 on another compatibile motherboard and RAM? Furthermore, are correctly working both cooling fans of the graphics chips? Can you improve the card cooling adding temporarly an big external fan?

I think card is defective, but I'd like rule out the effects related to an defective mobo and/or PSU, or to the temperature.

Bye bye

[JosiasMartins]

Both coolers are fine, and the temperature still in 32ºC (i use a IR Thermometer).
I have tested using a Gigabyte GA-8ISMLH, another motherboard with a Universal AGP with 3.3V support and i have the same error.

This problem occurs in WinXP and 98 using the last official drive.

If i configure the driver to "Single Chip Mode", the card works fine and stable!

[Glide]

Hi JosiasMartins, ok.

This looks as a hardware issue, but I'm not sure a VSA-100 to be defective. I.e. we could have a problem with the on board power stage or, if we should be lucky, with the system power supply unit.

Let me know.

Bye bye

[JosiasMartins]

Hi

I replace the system PoweSupply and the 470uF and 100uF capacitor stayed at power-input stage. The observed ripple are solved after the capacitor replacement but the initial problem continues.

After changing the capacitors, I left the card in a specialized BGA repair service for a reflow of the VSA100 slave. I read several posts on VOGONS of Voodoo 5 with problems in the BGA soldering of the VSA100 slave and that presented the same error (locking in 3D environment in DualGPU mode) ...

After receiving VOODOO5 and testing, disappointment came: The problem got worse. Now the V5 is strange. The images are not rendered completely and the colors are weird, it is as if the card was working in 256 colors mode.

For example: In the BIOS, when you open a MENU, the menu is drawn but its interior is gray. It is as if a GPU renders one part of the information, the other renders the other part, and it is just not doing this task.

My impression:
Before, there were two problems: The power supply was not stable, and some BGA soldering were damaged, leaving the second VSA completely inactive and undetectable for the VSA Master. Thus, the VSA Master started with all the rendering functions with you, as if it were a Voodoo 4. When trying to open a 3D environment, the driver request the VSA Slave, which did not respond and crashed the system.

After resoldering, the VSA Master is able to detect the VSA Slave and have passed part of the rendering tasks to it, including the 2D composition, however, the VSA Slave is defective (or still has a soldering problem) and cannot perform processing, causing screen elements not to be fully finalized and the operating system is unable to open a graphical environment (windows no longer starts after Reflow).

[JosiasMartins]

Some news...

I have installed an Windows XP and have observed the behavior of the V5. Without drivers, i are able to select 16/32bits color deph, but, the brightness are excessive... After I install the driver, the system try to start the graphics card and fail. I see a blackscreen, but, the blackscreen is blinking, like the system is trying to start the graphics ambient and are not able.

This could be caused by a lack of internal powersupply of my V5?  The excessive brightness can be explained by a power reference error as used by VGA converter step.