VOGONS

Search

Common searches

Damaged voodoo 2

Topic actions

First post, by Half-Saint

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Hi guys,

last week I bought a couple of Voodoo 2 cards but both seem to be defective. One has two or three broken traces and two missing capacitors (see photo). I tried to repair the traces but the end points are so tiny that I can't solder anything. I tried to use wire from old CD-ROM audio cable but it's too thick and so is the tip of my soldering iron. Had a pointed tip somewhere but can't find it for the life of me. While trying to photograph the damage, I noticed the missing capacitors. Three pins in the top left corner of one of the 3dfx chips are also a bit mangled but appear to be otherwise intact.

The second card looks undamaged and gets picked up by Windows (like the first) but when I run a test or game, the system hangs or produces the famous "glide2x.dll expected Voodoo, none detected" error.

Any hope of saving the cards or did I waste my money?

DSC_0310_.jpg
Filename
DSC_0310_.jpg
File size
1.73 MiB
Views
746 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

b15z33-2.png
f425xp-6.png

Reply 1 of 6, by derSammler

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Those traces are easy to fix, did that many times. You can use silver conductive paint for that. Remove the coating around the damaged area, use tape to mask all but one trace, then apply silver conductive paint. Once it's dry, remove the tape and go on with the next one.

You can also solder a thin wire between the holes where the traces start/end instead. That's a lot easier than trying to solder where the trace is actually damaged.

Reply 2 of 6, by Half-Saint

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
derSammler wrote:

You can also solder a thin wire between the holes where the traces start/end instead. That's a lot easier than trying to solder where the trace is actually damaged.

Maybe it's not obvious from what I wrote originally but I actually tried that. Unfortunately, I don't have wire that's thin enough and I can't find my pencil tip for the soldering iron.

b15z33-2.png
f425xp-6.png

Reply 4 of 6, by Half-Saint

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
derSammler wrote:

Well, then try the silver conductive paint method or get the right equipment for soldering.

Okay, what about the missing caps?

Nice website, by the way 😉

b15z33-2.png
f425xp-6.png

Reply 5 of 6, by Vipersan

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

For thin enough wire to fix traces ...
find a short length of multicore speaker wire or bell flex ...
strip about 3cm back to expose the multi strands ..then use single strands to bridge the gaps in each trace...
Tip ..dont strip all the wire at once ...this gives a managable thick wire end which is easier to handle ..
Once the trace is bridged then ..pull upwards against the blade of a sharp knife to cut the wire thread to length ..
this avoids further damaging the traces ..
hope this helps ..
done this thousands of times in my job as a TV engineer to repair damaged pcbs.
you can use spray laquer over the repaire pcb area ...but only when the job is complete.
rgds
VS

Reply 6 of 6, by .legaCy

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Half-Saint wrote:

Okay, what about the missing caps?

The caps may or may not be extremely necessary, i don't have idea of the purpose of those caps on the circuit but if it is one decoupling capacitor sometimes the IC can live without it, most of time it will present an unstable behavior, and sometimes it would not work at all.

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window