Is my Voodoo 5 AGP dead?

[Kusaywa]

Recently purchased a 3DFX Voodoo 5 AGP on ebay for $50. Installed it and it booted and ran fine, until... I tried to play a game. Nothing, just black screen. I rebooted and entered dxdiag. Ran a test on Direct 3D and same thing, freezing directx box. Installed Windows ME with 1.04 reference drivers. Same thing, rotating box in dxdiag would freeze. Does a Voodoo 5 require a certain amount of wattage from the PSU because of the power plug? Usually cards just die? Any other suggestions? THANKS!

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Originally posted by Kusaywa

Recently purchased a 3DFX Voodoo 5 AGP on ebay for $50. Installed it and it booted and ran fine, until... I tried to play a game. Nothing, just black screen. I rebooted and entered dxdiag. Ran a test on Direct 3D and same thing, freezing directx box. Installed Windows ME with 1.04 reference drivers. Same thing, rotating box in dxdiag would freeze. Does a Voodoo 5 require a certain amount of wattage from the PSU because of the power plug? Usually cards just die? Any other suggestions? THANKS!

Looks like a double post
http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14173

Ah well not to worry, my advice as OS and drivers go is use the following:

Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 with Win2K + SP4 or XP Pro + SP3
8SE or ME, take Amigamerlin 2.9.

But since your issue is somewhat differnt, it could be that your PSU isn't powerful enoyuugh which I doubt because even a 300 watt PSU can feed a Voodoo5 6000 and since you are using a 5500 AGP, I think the PSU you have I'd ashume is what? 350 a 450 watts?

As for the card, yes a card can die but it could also be something else, Win ME is like most know the worst possible OS you can think of, my advice is take 98SE + the latest Un-Official Service pack which is 2.1, you can get that here:
http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

It gives 98SE a Win2K Pro look and it also allows you to read and use NTFS files, the OS has no instabillity issues with ram sizes beyong 512MB and so on.
I have ran this for about 5 years, I used UnOfficial SP 1.6 NL a dutch versionbecause I had a dutch OS hehe with a 5500 AGP rev.A 2500 and an ASUS A7V333-R Ver 1.02 + 2x 512MB PC-2700 CL 2.5 from Samsung Original.
As for drivers I went for Amigamerlin 2.9 these simply rocked and they are still the best drivers I have used for the 5500 cards under 98SE + UOSP 2.03 NL which is 2.1 dutch version.
And for Win2K Pro + SP4 and XP Pro + SP3 I stuck to Amigamerlin 3.1 R11 and SFFT Alpha 41 Modified by ps47, you can get this one here:
http://www.3dfx.cz/download/sfftalpha41_custom.rar

Anyways try either one of these options, if you still get the same issues, I think there is something wrong with either your Voodoo5 or something else from your system.

[Kusaywa]

I've been running a Voodoo 4 PCI in this rig using Windows XP and all was fine. I wanted a Voodoo 5 because it had an AGP slot and it's 64mb compared to 32 on the Voodoo 4.
It's definately the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
I put in a Nvidia Vanta LT AGP, Voodoo 3 AGP & now a ATI Radeon X1650 AGP (which uses a floppy power wire).
All work!
When using dxdiag Test Direct 3D to test the Voodoo5, the spinning box would spin very slow, lock up, or reboot, depending on the drivers. But when testing the ATI Radeon X1600AGP which is a more demanding board (512mb), it works fine, as do the others.
It's a 250 watt power supply, and I've used reference drivers in both XP & ME as well as unofficial and all do the same.

[goriath]

Try another PSU if you can...

[Kusaywa]

I definately think it's the card, but I've never seen a card work and only have problems when playing 3D games. They are either dead or graphics are corrupt. That's why this whole thing is so strange???

[goriath]

In the other thread (please, do not open threads with the same topic next time) you wrote:

I'm hesitant to pull out the 250W PS and replace with another. After all, did they even make anything over a 250W when this card came out? Could it have lost power over the years, it is an old PS & PC?
But why no problems with the Radeon?

You may consider PSU quality and stability, not only total power wattage. I guess 250 watt for some test it is enough for radeon also (but probably not adequate for long operation!), so output power could not be the problem here.

Maybe Radeon is not so susceptible to voltage/current variations, it could tolerate more than Voodoo5 could.

BTW, you must do test as much as possible, in order to exlude possibly issues, so if you can try another PSU, I suggest you to do it;)

Are you getting graphic artifacts too?

[Kusaywa]

Put in a 400W PS with same results, actually froze and rebooted. Desktop graphics are fine (2D) but as soon as you run something in 3D (games, dxdiag) freezing.

[goriath]

Uhm...would be interesting test card as below:

Try to run 3D application in single chip operation mode.

Open 3dfx tools panel
Click on 3dfx AA tab
Under D3D API, in the slider about AA, switch from "Fastest Performance" to "Single Chip Only" option.

Try to run games again

Have you tried Glide and OpenGL games too? Is the same?