Maybe try another bios - this site seems to have plenty for example:

http://3dfxbios.stantoworld.co.uk/

The flash program doesn't know the memory chip that's on the card and thus can't program it.

You will find Seraphics flash recovery tool on the site ratfink linked to and here:

http://www.falconfly.de/tools.htm

I don't know if it's the right thing, so read the readme carefully.
I once used it with success to reanimate a misflashed V5 AGP card, but I don't know if it works in your case. No warranty.

Are you sure you flashed it with version 1.18 BIOS?

By the way, this thread should be useful, and so is this FAQ. The FAQ also describes how to flash a 'dead' Voodoo card.

@everyone,

Thanks a lot for the ideas! 😀 My poor brain is tired today, so I'm gonna leave this for 24 hours and come back to it. But I did get this far with it -

Inside the downloaded package mentioned in the O.P, there was a utility called dumpbios.exe. I ran this, and it appeared to work. It produced a .bin BIOS file. I then ran the aforementioned flash.exe program, with this newly created .bin BIOS file. That seemed to work too. This is interesting, as this result would seem to indicate that the flash.exe utility can "see" the card's EEPROM chip.

Incidentally, I downloaded several BIOS images (including two 1.18 versions) from Ratfink's provided link, but the flash.exe utility always repeats its same error message, as previously mentioned.

I think my next best move is to try the mismatched recovery utility, mentioned by Silent Loon.

Thanks everyone. 😀

Solved. Well, kind of. I abandoned the Intel 440BX chipset-based mobo, and put the V5 in to a P4-based system. In fact, I tried two V5s. One "normal" PC-based V5, and the other Mac-based V5. Both flashed successfully. Both cards gave me the initial error message about "no build information for the selected hardware", but when I entered "y" (yes) to continue, both cards got flashed.

However, there appears to be a side effect with the Mac to PC V5 card. If I choose a screen resolution of say 800x600, that's exactly what I get on the screen! In other words, the screen's image is 800x600, with a very large area of "nothing" all around the outside. Everything looks like this - the desktop, games, etc. Sure, if I crank up the desktop resolution to 1280x1024 (my monitor's native resolution), the entire monitor's screen is covered with the desktop image. But many of my games don't run in that resolution, and also, I am happy to play some games in lower resolutions such as 800x600.

Perhaps this resolution problem mentioned above is a driver problem? (I'm hoping it's not a "V5 Mac to PC" BIOS problem.) It may be a cable and/or monitor problem. Whatever it is, I'll keep messing about with it until it works...

There were some programs with an option "scale resolution to screen size" back in those days. I dont remember the name of the program, but it had something to do with "power"-something. It was something like Riva tuner, but with more general options. Try to find it. If I remember the name, I'll post again.

Alternatively, look for a scaling setting in the OSD menus of your monitor. Maybe it's deactivated there.

In the Nvidia driver control panel here on Vista, I can choose to use my monitor's built-in scaling or let the video card do it.

@elfuego & @Sune Salminen,

Thanks a lot for your comments. I will hunt about for a "software-based scaler", as my LCDs have no scaling settings. The Mac to PC V5 has both VGA and DVI outputs, and I tried the VGA output, and that worked OK.

I have a DVI to VGA "dongle gadget", which I have to use with my Matrox G450, but unfortunately this gadget doesn't fit on to the V5's DVI connector. The reason is that on this dongle gadget, there are 4 tiny pins surrounding the "flat slot-like" largest single pin. On the V5 DVI connector, there is one "flat slot-like" large single pin hole *without* the 4 tiny holes surrounding it, to accomdate the dongle gadget.

Robert, what you are seeing is the difference between DVI-D(Digital) and DVI-I(Integrated). The latter will have those four holes and the flattened "key", and it is specifically for analog RGB. The adapter dosen't really do any kind of electrical conversion, it simply makes the DVI connector mechanically compatible with a standard 15-pin Dsub (VGA). Seeing as how the V5 dosen't offer a discrete output for each connector making it a DVI-I would be redundant.

Thanks a lot prophase_j 😀

Also, this wikipedia link provides some useful info about DVI -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

I remembered the name of the program! It was powerstrip. Try it out:
http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

elfuego wrote:

I remembered the name of the program! It was powerstrip. Try it out:
http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

Thanks a lot elfuego! 😀