Nice, found a stb voodoo 3 3000 agp tv here myself that was in a slot 1 system with a 500 mhz pentium III at the recycling center, happened to spot it sitting on a trailer of junk as the dude was unloading stuff to be thrown away & asked if i could grab the graphics card, he said to take the whole pc. So i did that & grabbed the gpu, cpu & ram sticks, motherboard was a bottom of the barrel slot 1 motherboard from some brand I've never heard of, but i have a asus p2b at home & another slot 1 board i can't remember the name of atm. Still need to install an os onto that system but displays fine in bios so far that voodoo 3, its barely wobbling at all unlike my voodoo 1 lol.
I absolutely love this content. It reminds me of the board repair videos Louis Rossmann used to feature on his channel. Inspirational and oddly cathartic. I really want to find another Diamond Monster Voodoo II 12MB myself, just to experience SLI.
Yep, but board repairs that the "vintage/retro" PC crowd cares about. There is little money to be made in repairing these; it's all for the love of the components. I don't care about apple laptops :)
It's possible to solder those QFP packages without a microscope, I've done it quite a few times. I usually just drag solder then wick, usually takes like 30 seconds to a minute, then I check each and every pin with the adjacent one for shorts, which takes a lot longer! It also allows me to check for unsoldered pins, since you can see them wiggle when you touch them with the multimeter probe. But that was working with brand new chips, rather than repairing broken solder joints. Right before I caught COVID, I planned to build a new workbench dedicated to soldering, with space for a binocular (or possibly trinocular) microscope and a monitor on an arm above the bench and an ultrasonic bath and fume extractor under the bench. I might get to it one day, but I'll probably wait until I move to a bigger place which would let me build a bigger workbench. Anyway, great work repairing that Voodoo 2! Always good to see dead hardware returned to life.
Haha, I am planning to do the same right now - moving to a bigger place. But that might take 6 to 8 months from now. Regarding your technique of soldering those chips, I am not sure if I could do that. I bent so many pins trying to drag solder over them. I guess I would need to practice more. But once some of those pins are stuck at each other, it is quite difficult to separate them again.
Microsoldering goes so much better when you have powerful magnification. At least a very strong head loupe but that's extra unhealthy because the fumes are too close.
i appreciate that you took the time to arrange in the factory way the pins of a GPU that could.ve very easily not worked at all. that's OCD in action! :) great video, BuB
Positively therapeutic! For the card as well as the viewers. 😄 I do have to admit though that I did skip over a few of the repairs on the second side. Nonetheless, good to see yet another card come back to life thanks to your TLC! Best of luck on finding more cards like that at the scrapyard! Keep up the great work, you are the GOAT!
Excellent repair yet again and it worked first time ! 😲 Those FBI pins will test anyone's patience 😂, still banging my head against a brick wall with my Diamond V2 so looking forward to the diagnosis content you mentioned.
The second part after Intro should have been labeled as "inspection" instead of "instpection" 😁Love to see these repair videos. It has a soothing effect and makes me sleepy, or I'm tired I don't know 😄 Hope you save the other voodoo 2 too. What is the secret thing you wait from your viewer❔🤔
👍Thanks, I fixed the typo. Oh, I will not spoil anything yet regarding that secret thing I get from my viewer :) But, if it goes according to plan, it will revolutionize debugging 3Dfx cards ;)
Love watching these videos! I would love to have an SLI Voodoo 2 system just for fun, but a guy selling a few 3Dfx broken cards for cheap decided to have them repaired and now asks for astronomical prices. If only I could have bought a broken one before he decided to repair them...
Most Voodoo 2 cards can be repaired. Sometimes, it's just a broken resistor or a broken trace. Of course, a working Voodoo 2 is more expensive - I could see triple the price of a known defective 3Dfx card.
Just need to find an abandoned office building where the IT manager was a known hoarder. Got a huge pile of ram (2Kg, all vintages), and 8088, 286, 386, 486, pentium motherboards, misc vga cards. I know it’ll never happen again in my city. 😁
37:44 You could also use the tabel to vind. the 1nF. C51 is in the same cell as C151. So just take a other Cxx from the same cell. Then there is no need to measure
Lovely fix. I have a Voodoo 1 here, untested. I think some caps might require replacing. I need to find some time to build a test rig. I have an ASUS P55 T2P4 which would fit perfectly. Fingers crossed you get the other Voodoos running, too!
Yes, that board and Voodoo 1 is a perfect combination. I bought a used system in 1998 with the same board and a Voodoo 1 (Righteous 3D from Orchid). I still have both to this day! Part 3 of the other Voodoo 2 is ready and will come at the end of this week!
You can put that bent card in a standard oven and heat cycle it without damaging components to allow straightening it out. It takes less heat than you’d think. You basically have to get all the layers heated up to allow straightening while cooling.
You’d be surprised how many of these option cards came warped in late 90s and very early 00s from all suppliers. We would “straighten” them out best we could, but it got so bad at times we finally had to reject deliveries. This was at Compaq. All PCs after being built would go through a two hour run-in at that time, so we’d know if the card was bad or not.
@@bitsundbolts You would surprised the quality of suppliers in those days. It was wild west times. That’s why so many disappeared. PC manufacturers couldn’t trust them. It was hilarious. You coukd have a sound card, video card, nic card all in successive slots, but it would like a chart 📈 lol.
It is always exciting to visit the scrapyard. However, you will never find what you're looking for - haha. You might get lucky and find something while you're looking for something else - that is just my experience. I should offer "Scrapyard Adventures" - a trip to the scrapyard with Bits und Bolts ;)
That reminded me that I'm still hanging onto a 6800 AGP. It is a bottom tier PNY Verto GeForce 6800 AGP with 128MB DDR. I did have it paired with my Diamond Monster 3D II after upgrading that machine from the "infamous" GeForce 4 MX440. I had forgotten there were so many variations of the ole 6800.
@@marvinmallette6795I had (maybe still do, I don't remember selling it) a 6800 LE which had the same die as a regular 6800 but with some cores disabled. With the right tools they could be unlocked and in a lot of cases were fine (thank you binning!) I was able to unlock 3 of the 4 locked cores 😊
nice nice nice! good looking curve to that pcb. so you must have a pair of diamond cards even of the same revision by now.... for to have one voodoo 2 there must be a second voodoo 2 just ask the sith.
They're not that bad after you get a feeling where to apply pressure and how to drag the soldering iron across them. But I agree, if you're not careful, one wrong move and you're in for a terrible experience.
I have a terrible UV light. It takes about 30 minutes and it drains 3x AAA batteries in the process. And if the solder mask is too thick, it remains fluid below a crust of hardened solder mask. I don't have this issue when I place it in the sun. I should change my UV light and get a proper one.
@@bitsundbolts I've also had some terrible uv lights. Got a nice lithium powered one recently, only about 7 usd and cures in 30-60 seconds. Wish I could post a link for you.
Wow, that's fast. To be honest, I don't think I want a UV light anymore since I have access to 340+ days per year with sunshine. I only have an issue when I am working in the evening on repairs and solder mask would prevent me from continuing.
you sound dis-heartened by the delayed/not going the way you want projects, don't be, we(or I know at least I do) watch for the journey, it's all interesting Plus I get my inner tinkerer fix without having to fill my house with solder smoke watching these vids and learn a bunch
Ah, the memory modules are a pain because I don't know what the issue is. I just have to experiment more and hopefully figure out what is going on. Regarding the solder smoke - yes, I am trying to get rid of it as much as possible. You can hear a fan in the background, but I need a proper exhaust system. The problem in Dubai is that it is 40+ degrees outside. But I will find a solution very soon.
You can delay a video project as much as you want, as long as there isn't silence. I am personally very eager to see what is wrong with that Voodoo 2 card and I surely hope the FBI chip isn't toast. But, to be fair... I love your electronics saving videos, so another Voodoo 2 saved is still a good video!
I'll start on the other Voodoo 2 today. Hopefully, it isn't the FBI chip. Even though I have a spare chip on that donor card, I don't know if it'll work. We will see. This should be the video for next week.
I love theses old Voodoo 2 videos. My late model 3Dfx built Voodoo 2 1000 is single sided and is 12MB version. Do you think it would be possible or worth wile double up to 24 MB of memory?
I have never seen a 24 MB card. I have a feeling that it is not possible to address this much memory. If it would be possible, someone would have done it already. I might be wrong though.
@@knightsun2920 There is a document from 3Dfx about what it supports, can't link it directly but you can use the quote below to search for it, it seems like the texture memory could be increased up to 16MB according to that document, not sure anyone ever did? "The minimum amount of texture memory required is 2 MBytes, with a maximum of 16 MBytes of texture memory supported" in the end this would result in a 20MB Voodoo 2 card because the same document says that the frame buffer is limted to 4MB maximum memory.
Keep in mind that glass blocks as lot of UV light, so putting it in straight UV light may appear to be a significant amount faster. And that's true, it is faster. :O
Great work man! As you said... without microscope is nearly impossible do this job. I have a question for you... what temperature are you using on your solder? Greetings from Argentina!
Was the TNT actually better? I think I recall running across a TNT card at some point, might have been with the Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo 2 I yoinked from a scrap pile. The TNT had 2D graphics capable, and some better compatibility with some games. I think by the time I could compare them, Intel graphics had surpassed the TNT and I was looking at the GeForce 4 MX440 as an upgrade from integrated. The old Voodoo 2 still had 3DFX Glide support, and so I had a reason to keep it around for a while even with the MX440 upgrade. Still, I remember my benchmarks showing the TNT and Voodoo 2 as being in the same class, like GeForce and Radeon are now (GeForce RTX 4060 vs Radeon RX 7800 XT?). 3DFX went out of business by punching above their weight class, and not getting the return on the R&D.
I'm in the United Arab Emirates, not in Saudi Arabia. However, they may have something similar over there. Check with local people. You might find them in Industrial areas.
For me, if I have these cards, I'd like to transplant the FBI chip to another card first and see if this can fix the 1MB problem, as the another one has better condition in appearance.
Good question. It's the FBI memory, so, I would assume it was like this from the factory. Maybe they just had different memory suppliers and this is how those other memory chips ended up on that card.
Yes, that is the best way. However, you have to be very careful. One wrong move and you'll end up moving those legs and pushing them together. It's quite difficult to separate them again.
Are there any non Reference PCB that are shorter than these ones? I have 3 Creative VooDoo 2's and would like to trade one for a shorter One for a project
What would you say is the best way to find a scrapyard near you that would let you take / buy scrap from them? It seems like it's a harder search for me than it should be.
I don't have an answer to your question unfortunately. I was introduced to the scrapyard near me. I wouldn't know how to find it by myself. I can also imagine, that people aren't willing to share this information if they gained access to a scrapyard where you can take items. Maybe check for used electronics stores and ask them if they would know something.
Nice repair, but wouldn't it make more sense to repair the card that you used as a donor here, and use this damaged card as a donor for that one? With all the dents and craters on the board, and on top of that it is also warped, there was a high chance for shorts between layers and/or broken vias.
That's a good point. I'm not sure which PCB/model is more desirable. The donor card is an STB model if I'm not mistaken. I would argue that a Diamond Monster 3D II is more known than an STB (no marketing name). Also, to fix the STB card, I would have to fix a lot of pads for TMU 1 and move the chip. TMU 0 also is heavily damaged on the donor card. It would have been a lot more work than the way I show in the video. Also, there were some questionable components on the donor card. If I ever get my hands on two TMUs and an FBI chip, I may consider restoring this card as well.
@@bitsundbolts I don't think it matters much if this is the more desirable model, if it's so beaten up. But if the donor card also has lifted QFP pads, than you probably chose the better candidate to repair.
Amtech from China (it may be fake, I'm not sure). You can find most of the items and products I use if you follow the link to my website in the video description.
Love your videos. question, do you have a hot air station??? that would be better suited for when you need to solder/desolder SMD components, i find using a Hot air station along with solder paste does a quicker and neater job :)
Thank you! Yes, I do have a hot air station. I didn't take it out (I live in an apartment and need to stow away things when I am done). But I agree, a soldering station would have worked better, especially with the larger caps.
Yes, the damage on this card has most certainly been caused by the treatment this card received at the scrapyard. So, some threw out a perfectly fine working Voodoo 2!
Voodoo-repair ASMR is my new favorite genre.
I just grab my popcorn! The best series from the scrapyard
Hope you'll enjoy the video!
@@bitsundbolts sure I do! Gran finale!!! Thank you very much! Any chance this board can go to the channel's store like the godzilla mem modules?
Any time retro hardware is saved, is a good day in my book. I think we should start to call you the "Voodoo Whisperer"!
Haha, let's wait for the other 3Dfx card. I hope I can finish this project next week! If that will work again, you can call me anything you want!
Nice! I found a voodoo 3 at the scrapyard recently myself. Gotta clean it up and make sure it works. Or refer to BuB videos to get it working again.
Hehe, congratulations! Finding a 3Dfx Voodoo at the scrapyard is a special event!
@@bitsundbolts I didn't even notice until i unpacked at home. I usually buy AGP cards indiscriminately.
Nice, found a stb voodoo 3 3000 agp tv here myself that was in a slot 1 system with a 500 mhz pentium III at the recycling center, happened to spot it sitting on a trailer of junk as the dude was unloading stuff to be thrown away & asked if i could grab the graphics card, he said to take the whole pc. So i did that & grabbed the gpu, cpu & ram sticks, motherboard was a bottom of the barrel slot 1 motherboard from some brand I've never heard of, but i have a asus p2b at home & another slot 1 board i can't remember the name of atm.
Still need to install an os onto that system but displays fine in bios so far that voodoo 3, its barely wobbling at all unlike my voodoo 1 lol.
If it does not work, try reflashing the ROM first (using a second pci vga card and dos). A lot of Voodoo3's seem to have "EEPROM data rot"...
This is so hypnotic and soothing. Cannot... stop... watching... 😵
all hail the voodoo king. Always enjoy the vids, thanks
Thank you!
I absolutely love this content.
It reminds me of the board repair videos Louis Rossmann used to feature on his channel. Inspirational and oddly cathartic.
I really want to find another Diamond Monster Voodoo II 12MB myself, just to experience SLI.
Thanks!
Yep, but board repairs that the "vintage/retro" PC crowd cares about. There is little money to be made in repairing these; it's all for the love of the components. I don't care about apple laptops :)
Some of those Voodoo cards are getting expensive these days... Still, broken cards catch a premium, but a working card fetches three times as much.
It's possible to solder those QFP packages without a microscope, I've done it quite a few times. I usually just drag solder then wick, usually takes like 30 seconds to a minute, then I check each and every pin with the adjacent one for shorts, which takes a lot longer! It also allows me to check for unsoldered pins, since you can see them wiggle when you touch them with the multimeter probe. But that was working with brand new chips, rather than repairing broken solder joints.
Right before I caught COVID, I planned to build a new workbench dedicated to soldering, with space for a binocular (or possibly trinocular) microscope and a monitor on an arm above the bench and an ultrasonic bath and fume extractor under the bench. I might get to it one day, but I'll probably wait until I move to a bigger place which would let me build a bigger workbench.
Anyway, great work repairing that Voodoo 2! Always good to see dead hardware returned to life.
Haha, I am planning to do the same right now - moving to a bigger place. But that might take 6 to 8 months from now. Regarding your technique of soldering those chips, I am not sure if I could do that. I bent so many pins trying to drag solder over them. I guess I would need to practice more. But once some of those pins are stuck at each other, it is quite difficult to separate them again.
Microsoldering goes so much better when you have powerful magnification. At least a very strong head loupe but that's extra unhealthy because the fumes are too close.
You have no idea how important your videos are for my sanity (I live in Russia)
Thank you! Happy to hear that my videos are important to you. I am sorry for the entire situation. I hope that this madness stops sooner than later.
Heh.
How's that going?
Ah, well, now we do! Oh my, a circle.
28:00 this whole "soldering pins" section is just so zen and relaxing.
Nice work - don't think anyone's too worried about having projects delayed if it means you have more info / whats required, to fix problems.
i appreciate that you took the time to arrange in the factory way the pins of a GPU that could.ve very easily not worked at all. that's OCD in action! :) great video, BuB
Many thanks to the author for his work and for the link to Vogons.
Thanks for taking us along on this journey. I’m really enjoying these longer form videos and learning about your thought process. Good stuff.
Any voodoo card that can be saved should be saved. It’s a good piece of history and nostalgia for sure.
Positively therapeutic! For the card as well as the viewers. 😄 I do have to admit though that I did skip over a few of the repairs on the second side. Nonetheless, good to see yet another card come back to life thanks to your TLC! Best of luck on finding more cards like that at the scrapyard! Keep up the great work, you are the GOAT!
always good that these cards get saved
3dfx videos are the best !
Great!
Hope you can solve the issues with the memory modules soon. Nice to know you are getting some help with the other Voodoo 2!
Yes, I am looking forward to solve the problem of the other Voodoo 2.
Genial reparación, dió mucho gusto que funcionará.
As always, nice work.
another fantastic repair job.. saved another one..
Very good work, really requires a new found love for patience
Nice repair Alex
Thank you!
Super Abendunterhaltung. Da kommt man heim und findet ein neues BuB V2 Wiederbelebungsvideo. Gut gemacht.
Vielen Dank! Ja, das Video ist ein bisschen länger geworden. Jetzt muss ich mich um die andere Voodoo 2 kümmern 🙂
Excellent repair yet again and it worked first time ! 😲
Those FBI pins will test anyone's patience 😂, still banging my head against a brick wall with my Diamond V2 so looking forward to the diagnosis content you mentioned.
Great hands on knowledge. Subscribed
Thank you
Amazing work!
Very good and your good at soldering to job well done
The second part after Intro should have been labeled as "inspection" instead of "instpection" 😁Love to see these repair videos. It has a soothing effect and makes me sleepy, or I'm tired I don't know 😄
Hope you save the other voodoo 2 too. What is the secret thing you wait from your viewer❔🤔
👍Thanks, I fixed the typo. Oh, I will not spoil anything yet regarding that secret thing I get from my viewer :) But, if it goes according to plan, it will revolutionize debugging 3Dfx cards ;)
nice work man
Love watching these videos! I would love to have an SLI Voodoo 2 system just for fun, but a guy selling a few 3Dfx broken cards for cheap decided to have them repaired and now asks for astronomical prices. If only I could have bought a broken one before he decided to repair them...
Most Voodoo 2 cards can be repaired. Sometimes, it's just a broken resistor or a broken trace. Of course, a working Voodoo 2 is more expensive - I could see triple the price of a known defective 3Dfx card.
Great job!
I wish I had a mythical "scrapyard" filled with vintage retro computing goodies to be plundered at will.
Yeah, it's nice to have access and find old hardware. What I hear is that most scrapyards don't allow you to enter or take stuff.
Just need to find an abandoned office building where the IT manager was a known hoarder. Got a huge pile of ram (2Kg, all vintages), and 8088, 286, 386, 486, pentium motherboards, misc vga cards. I know it’ll never happen again in my city. 😁
another nice fix and see you soon
37:44 You could also use the tabel to vind. the 1nF. C51 is in the same cell as C151. So just take a other Cxx from the same cell. Then there is no need to measure
Correct. That would have been easier and doesn't require a multimeter.
That RAM chip might be ok. It's not the die. It's only the case near a leg.
I had 2 of those with the SLI cable back in the day!!
Lovely fix. I have a Voodoo 1 here, untested. I think some caps might require replacing. I need to find some time to build a test rig. I have an ASUS P55 T2P4 which would fit perfectly. Fingers crossed you get the other Voodoos running, too!
Yes, that board and Voodoo 1 is a perfect combination. I bought a used system in 1998 with the same board and a Voodoo 1 (Righteous 3D from Orchid). I still have both to this day!
Part 3 of the other Voodoo 2 is ready and will come at the end of this week!
very therapeutic! :) I have a SB16 in need of the same service :)
It takes quite a bit of time, but it's a good feeling once the card works again!
@@bitsundbolts yes - I shall do my SB then. I have a half-working one from which to take spares/readings.
The Voodoo whisperer wins again!
=P
13:06 You got a bubble in your solder mask. That would do my head in.
You can put that bent card in a standard oven and heat cycle it without damaging components to allow straightening it out. It takes less heat than you’d think. You basically have to get all the layers heated up to allow straightening while cooling.
What temperature would the oven have to be for the PCB to deform?
@@bitsundbolts 200 fahrenheit if I remember. It’s subsolder melting temps.
You’d be surprised how many of these option cards came warped in late 90s and very early 00s from all suppliers. We would “straighten” them out best we could, but it got so bad at times we finally had to reject deliveries. This was at Compaq. All PCs after being built would go through a two hour run-in at that time, so we’d know if the card was bad or not.
Wow, I wouldn't expect this to happen from a company like Compaq.
@@bitsundbolts You would surprised the quality of suppliers in those days. It was wild west times. That’s why so many disappeared. PC manufacturers couldn’t trust them. It was hilarious. You coukd have a sound card, video card, nic card all in successive slots, but it would like a chart 📈 lol.
nice save
Wish I could visit your magic scrap yard! Maybe I could finally find my GF 6800 Ultra AGP, the last card I'm missing from my AGP collection.
It is always exciting to visit the scrapyard. However, you will never find what you're looking for - haha. You might get lucky and find something while you're looking for something else - that is just my experience. I should offer "Scrapyard Adventures" - a trip to the scrapyard with Bits und Bolts ;)
@@bitsundbolts I'll hop in my Dacia Duster and come visit :) 7100KM from Sweden to UAE, 75 hour drive. WORTH IT! :P
@@bitsundbolts Definitely do some scrapyard trip videos.
That reminded me that I'm still hanging onto a 6800 AGP. It is a bottom tier PNY Verto GeForce 6800 AGP with 128MB DDR. I did have it paired with my Diamond Monster 3D II after upgrading that machine from the "infamous" GeForce 4 MX440. I had forgotten there were so many variations of the ole 6800.
@@marvinmallette6795I had (maybe still do, I don't remember selling it) a 6800 LE which had the same die as a regular 6800 but with some cores disabled. With the right tools they could be unlocked and in a lot of cases were fine (thank you binning!) I was able to unlock 3 of the 4 locked cores 😊
Excellent work, like!
You need one of those two pronged soldering irons for smd
Or a hot air station
Thank You !!
nice nice nice! good looking curve to that pcb. so you must have a pair of diamond cards even of the same revision by now.... for to have one voodoo 2 there must be a second voodoo 2 just ask the sith.
I think I do have two of the same revision. I haven't pulled out the box with 3Dfx stuff for quite some time. But that will change soon!
Yer a wizard, Harry
its quite common for 90's era QFPs to have solder joints break on one or more sides. Especially in the early days of RoHS being introduced.
The alignment of the the drills is so off on that board its crazy. Like there are drills that are breaking the copper pad :D
I wish I had that scrapyard near me, it's a gold mine!
This is very mesmerizing, apart from the large IC feet which gives me anxiety with how fragile they look when moving around.
They're not that bad after you get a feeling where to apply pressure and how to drag the soldering iron across them. But I agree, if you're not careful, one wrong move and you're in for a terrible experience.
I still have my 2 diamond 12mb voodoo 2 cards all boxed up in my spare room.
Will at some point build a retro pc with them.
Good work!
Is it possible to increase the RAM on this card?
Not that I am aware of.
@@bitsundbolts thanks for the reply
For low sun days or nights, I'd suggest a UV curing lamp. Very cheap from the usual places.
I have a terrible UV light. It takes about 30 minutes and it drains 3x AAA batteries in the process. And if the solder mask is too thick, it remains fluid below a crust of hardened solder mask. I don't have this issue when I place it in the sun. I should change my UV light and get a proper one.
@@bitsundbolts I've also had some terrible uv lights. Got a nice lithium powered one recently, only about 7 usd and cures in 30-60 seconds. Wish I could post a link for you.
Wow, that's fast. To be honest, I don't think I want a UV light anymore since I have access to 340+ days per year with sunshine. I only have an issue when I am working in the evening on repairs and solder mask would prevent me from continuing.
you sound dis-heartened by the delayed/not going the way you want projects, don't be, we(or I know at least I do) watch for the journey, it's all interesting
Plus I get my inner tinkerer fix without having to fill my house with solder smoke watching these vids and learn a bunch
Ah, the memory modules are a pain because I don't know what the issue is. I just have to experiment more and hopefully figure out what is going on. Regarding the solder smoke - yes, I am trying to get rid of it as much as possible. You can hear a fan in the background, but I need a proper exhaust system. The problem in Dubai is that it is 40+ degrees outside. But I will find a solution very soon.
You can delay a video project as much as you want, as long as there isn't silence.
I am personally very eager to see what is wrong with that Voodoo 2 card and I surely hope the FBI chip isn't toast.
But, to be fair... I love your electronics saving videos, so another Voodoo 2 saved is still a good video!
I'll start on the other Voodoo 2 today. Hopefully, it isn't the FBI chip. Even though I have a spare chip on that donor card, I don't know if it'll work. We will see. This should be the video for next week.
I love theses old Voodoo 2 videos. My late model 3Dfx built Voodoo 2 1000 is single sided and is 12MB version. Do you think it would be possible or worth wile double up to 24 MB of memory?
I have never seen a 24 MB card. I have a feeling that it is not possible to address this much memory. If it would be possible, someone would have done it already. I might be wrong though.
@@bitsundbolts might make for a good video, add 12 Sockets so the memory can be removed.
@@knightsun2920 There is a document from 3Dfx about what it supports, can't link it directly but you can use the quote below to search for it, it seems like the texture memory could be increased up to 16MB according to that document, not sure anyone ever did? "The minimum amount of texture memory required is 2 MBytes, with a maximum of 16 MBytes of texture memory supported" in the end this would result in a 20MB Voodoo 2 card because the same document says that the frame buffer is limted to 4MB maximum memory.
@@perhansson6718 That could be interesting
Mad skills! #savethevoodoos
As long there is 3dfx (or just general hardware repairs), people will be happy. Don't worry :D
Nice save! If you 3D print the shell I made, you can force the board back to flat with it. However I don't really know if it helps in any way LOL
Oh, yes, I've seen those shells. But I'm not sure if it would be a good idea now since I already soldered back all the legs of the 3Dfx chips.
@@bitsundbolts You are right. Unless we can find a way to bend these boards back straight, it will only create stress.
Keep in mind that glass blocks as lot of UV light, so putting it in straight UV light may appear to be a significant amount faster. And that's true, it is faster. :O
Great work man! As you said... without microscope is nearly impossible do this job. I have a question for you... what temperature are you using on your solder? Greetings from Argentina!
Thank you! I have my soldering iron set to 330 degrees.
Working at the same card atm...showing 4mb on FBI but only 2mb on each TMU's
Most likely bad solder connections of the 3Dfx pins. I had a few of those and it was always the bad solder.
My guess is if an SMD component is falling off it's unlikely to need just a solder job.
That's the Voodoo2 I had back in the day, before I was lucky enough to get a TNT.
Was the TNT actually better? I think I recall running across a TNT card at some point, might have been with the Diamond Monster 3D II Voodoo 2 I yoinked from a scrap pile. The TNT had 2D graphics capable, and some better compatibility with some games. I think by the time I could compare them, Intel graphics had surpassed the TNT and I was looking at the GeForce 4 MX440 as an upgrade from integrated. The old Voodoo 2 still had 3DFX Glide support, and so I had a reason to keep it around for a while even with the MX440 upgrade. Still, I remember my benchmarks showing the TNT and Voodoo 2 as being in the same class, like GeForce and Radeon are now (GeForce RTX 4060 vs Radeon RX 7800 XT?). 3DFX went out of business by punching above their weight class, and not getting the return on the R&D.
Did you notice the resistor array (RA41) on the donor board was also the wrong value?
Btw, bending is best done before resoldering chip, i don't know the sequence of events in this case.
I tried bending the board back before I worked on the card. It didn't help or did anything.
@@bitsundbolts Good because bending after soldering could crack joints again and the chip would "hold back" the bending too :)
Riyadh scrapeyard? If so I need to check before leaving since I’m working in that city too
I'm in the United Arab Emirates, not in Saudi Arabia. However, they may have something similar over there. Check with local people. You might find them in Industrial areas.
For me, if I have these cards, I'd like to transplant the FBI chip to another card first and see if this can fix the 1MB problem, as the another one has better condition in appearance.
Hi, what's that green varnish name ?
It's solder mask. It gets hard under UV light. It's the same that's applied to the surface of the PCB.
I wonder why the bottom RAM is a different brand.
Good question. It's the FBI memory, so, I would assume it was like this from the factory. Maybe they just had different memory suppliers and this is how those other memory chips ended up on that card.
Check short in vcc/12v rails before plug-in the card?
I checked the 5-volt line before starting. I didn't check 12 volts. I'm not sure if the card even has a golden pad to connect to the 12 volt PCI slot.
Drag-solder those chips. No need to check every pin if it's lifted.
Yes, that is the best way. However, you have to be very careful. One wrong move and you'll end up moving those legs and pushing them together. It's quite difficult to separate them again.
Are there any non Reference PCB that are shorter than these ones? I have 3 Creative VooDoo 2's and would like to trade one for a shorter One for a project
I think all my Voodoo 2 cards have the same length and are all based on the reference design. Maybe someone else would know / has a shorter Voodoo 2.
You need both working so we can run SLI!
Yes! That would be awesome!
Wow I still have my voodoo 2 cards with driver disk
They're increasing in price these days!
What would you say is the best way to find a scrapyard near you that would let you take / buy scrap from them? It seems like it's a harder search for me than it should be.
I don't have an answer to your question unfortunately. I was introduced to the scrapyard near me. I wouldn't know how to find it by myself. I can also imagine, that people aren't willing to share this information if they gained access to a scrapyard where you can take items. Maybe check for used electronics stores and ask them if they would know something.
another thursday video!
Palms outside, is it Dubai?
Yes, Palm Jumeirah in Dubai 🙂
I always wanted one of those puppies. It's ok, I have an rx6800 now. The wound is healed.
Nice repair, but wouldn't it make more sense to repair the card that you used as a donor here, and use this damaged card as a donor for that one? With all the dents and craters on the board, and on top of that it is also warped, there was a high chance for shorts between layers and/or broken vias.
That's a good point. I'm not sure which PCB/model is more desirable. The donor card is an STB model if I'm not mistaken. I would argue that a Diamond Monster 3D II is more known than an STB (no marketing name).
Also, to fix the STB card, I would have to fix a lot of pads for TMU 1 and move the chip. TMU 0 also is heavily damaged on the donor card. It would have been a lot more work than the way I show in the video. Also, there were some questionable components on the donor card.
If I ever get my hands on two TMUs and an FBI chip, I may consider restoring this card as well.
@@bitsundbolts I don't think it matters much if this is the more desirable model, if it's so beaten up. But if the donor card also has lifted QFP pads, than you probably chose the better candidate to repair.
My Mainboard is bend heavely and it works fine
I think it's ok. It's just an aesthetic issue.
🌻
What flux do you use?
Amtech from China (it may be fake, I'm not sure). You can find most of the items and products I use if you follow the link to my website in the video description.
Love your videos. question, do you have a hot air station??? that would be better suited for when you need to solder/desolder SMD components, i find using a Hot air station along with solder paste does a quicker and neater job :)
Thank you! Yes, I do have a hot air station. I didn't take it out (I live in an apartment and need to stow away things when I am done). But I agree, a soldering station would have worked better, especially with the larger caps.
@@bitsundbolts ahhh yes i understand :)
Możesz ustawić polskie napisy?
Powinieneś móc ustawić polskie napisy w ustawieniach wideo - ta odpowiedź została przetłumaczona przy użyciu Tłumacza Google.
@@bitsundbolts brak polskich
I wonder how many of these repairs are just because of how it is treated at the scrapyard. I think probably almost all.
Yes, the damage on this card has most certainly been caused by the treatment this card received at the scrapyard. So, some threw out a perfectly fine working Voodoo 2!
are you liveing in dubai?
Yes
@@bitsundbolts why?
@@noamhardufProbably same reason I live in Winnipeg 😁
RA41 in donor board 330 vs 220 )
Yes, this was clearly replaced. On my card, they're both 220 RA.
VOODOO!
An idea for a giveaway of the saved Voodoo cards to your viewers.
That is a possibility. I cannot keep all cards to myself. So, yes, it is a possibility to do this some day.
nice save
What flux do you use?
Hi, you can check the link to my website. I have affiliate links to most of the products I use there.