Just put the whole air flow thing to bed and go with some old school liquid cooling.... vga block, res and an aquarium pump.

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat.
They over heat and the capacitors start to leak on the PCB and destroy the traces.
Also when they over heat the solder joints break and sometimes the GPU solder ball welds get broken too.
Bad PCB design and Manufacturing process. Also cheap capacitors.
The MOSFET also over heats.
Its mainly the Voodoo GPU chip and MOSFET that over heat causing the PCB to over heat which causes the Capacitors to leak
Onto the PCB and destroy the traces on the PCB.
Also over heating causes the solder joints to break on the surface mount components like ram chips and GPU chip.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-02-17, 10:08:

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat. They over heat and the capacit […]
Show full quote

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat.
They over heat and the capacitors start to leak on the PCB and destroy the traces.
Also when they over heat the solder joints break and sometimes the GPU solder ball welds get broken too.
Bad PCB design and Manufacturing process. Also cheap capacitors.
The MOSFET also over heats.
Its mainly the Voodoo GPU chip and MOSFET that over heat causing the PCB to over heat which causes the Capacitors to leak
Onto the PCB and destroy the traces on the PCB.
Also over heating causes the solder joints to break on the surface mount components like ram chips and GPU chip.

I have handled and repaired literally dozens of Voodoo 3s and I've never seen a leaky capacitor or trace damage from cap leakage. In fact, if the caps haven't been snapped off they generally tend to not be a problem at all. (though it's certainly not a bad idea to replace them if you have the skills... It's fairly easy to do)

Also, these cards aren't rare. There are still thousands of them in circulation and many many still in active use in arcade cabinets. You don't find them all the time because they are desirable. They are desirable because they are great at what they do and there is a lot of hype and prestige around them for retro computing. Also because they are still needed as replacements for arcade cabinets when they do eventually fail.

The main modes of failure I have seen with these are physical damage from poor storage or scrappers and a failed/corrupt BIOS. The PCBs definitely get discolored and can even smell burnt if they have been used for years without good air flow, but surprisingly few of the discolored cards I have found appear to have failed due to heat.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-02-17, 15:05:

I have handled and repaired literally dozens of Voodoo 3s and I've never seen a leaky capacitor or trace damage. In fact, if the […]
Show full quote

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-02-17, 10:08:

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat. They over heat and the capacit […]
Show full quote

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat.
They over heat and the capacitors start to leak on the PCB and destroy the traces.
Also when they over heat the solder joints break and sometimes the GPU solder ball welds get broken too.
Bad PCB design and Manufacturing process. Also cheap capacitors.
The MOSFET also over heats.
Its mainly the Voodoo GPU chip and MOSFET that over heat causing the PCB to over heat which causes the Capacitors to leak
Onto the PCB and destroy the traces on the PCB.
Also over heating causes the solder joints to break on the surface mount components like ram chips and GPU chip.

I have handled and repaired literally dozens of Voodoo 3s and I've never seen a leaky capacitor or trace damage. In fact, if the caps haven't been snapped off they generally tend to not be a problem at all. (though it's certainly not a bad idea to replace them if you have the skills... It's fairly easy to do)

Also, these cards aren't rare. There are still thousands of them in circulation and many many still in active use in arcade cabinets. You don't find them all the time because they are desirable. They are desirable because they are great at what they do and there is a lot of hype and prestige around them for retro computing. Also because they are still needed as replacements for arcade cabinets when they do eventually fail.

The main modes of failure I have seen with these are physical damage from poor storage or scrappers and a failed/corrupt BIOS. The PCBs definitely get discolored and can even smell burnt if they have been used for years without good air flow, but surprisingly few of the discolored cards I have found appear to have failed due to heat.

+1 on that. The cards are actually pretty resilient and they're far from scarce, they just get bought pretty quickly whey they appear in the market.

Doornkaat wrote on 2023-02-17, 15:32:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-02-17, 15:05:

I have handled and repaired literally dozens of Voodoo 3s and I've never seen a leaky capacitor or trace damage from cap leakage […]
Show full quote

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-02-17, 10:08:

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat. They over heat and the capacit […]
Show full quote

One of the main reasons there are so few of these card around any more is because they over heat.
They over heat and the capacitors start to leak on the PCB and destroy the traces.
Also when they over heat the solder joints break and sometimes the GPU solder ball welds get broken too.
Bad PCB design and Manufacturing process. Also cheap capacitors.
The MOSFET also over heats.
Its mainly the Voodoo GPU chip and MOSFET that over heat causing the PCB to over heat which causes the Capacitors to leak
Onto the PCB and destroy the traces on the PCB.
Also over heating causes the solder joints to break on the surface mount components like ram chips and GPU chip.

I have handled and repaired literally dozens of Voodoo 3s and I've never seen a leaky capacitor or trace damage from cap leakage. In fact, if the caps haven't been snapped off they generally tend to not be a problem at all. (though it's certainly not a bad idea to replace them if you have the skills... It's fairly easy to do)

Also, these cards aren't rare. There are still thousands of them in circulation and many many still in active use in arcade cabinets. You don't find them all the time because they are desirable. They are desirable because they are great at what they do and there is a lot of hype and prestige around them for retro computing. Also because they are still needed as replacements for arcade cabinets when they do eventually fail.

The main modes of failure I have seen with these are physical damage from poor storage or scrappers and a failed/corrupt BIOS. The PCBs definitely get discolored and can even smell burnt if they have been used for years without good air flow, but surprisingly few of the discolored cards I have found appear to have failed due to heat.

+1 on that. The cards are actually pretty resilient and they're far from scarce, they just get bought pretty quickly whey they appear in the market.

My absolute favorite things about these cards:
1. No components on the back.
2. A board layout that protects most of the components on the top side, except for the SMD 10uf 16v caps, but those are simple to replace once you figure out a good method.
3. Relatively durable or well protected pins\legs on chips.

For 1 and 2: The single biggest killer of video cards that I find is damage to tiny SMD components. I have a large collection of cards I just can't get rid of, hoping that some day I'll have the skills and tools to easily replace the little "grains of sand" that have been chipped off the back of these boards. Lots of Geforce FX, Geforce 6 and 7 AGP, several Quadro4 980XGL, Radeon 9800s and much more. All dead and with unidentifiable components crushed or missing, mostly on the back. The heavier the card, the more likely it will have a lots of damage on the back. You can imagine, a stack of video cards that weigh a couple pounds each, with their metal brackets scraping across the back of the card next to it... *shudder* So so so sad that people did this to expensive hardware. I never stored my parts loose like that unless they were really worthless or had absolutely no fragile components on them.

3: The second biggest killer of video cards and sound cards is the exposed legs on chips being torn off or bent in such a way that it's impossible to straighten them without breaking them off (or desoldering the entire chip). Voodoo 2s are a huge pain in the butt because they have SO many chips with exposed legs that are very long and fragile. The Voodoo 3 on the other hand has absolutely NONE if it's an SDRAM model, and the SGRAM models aren't too bad either because the heatsink is large enough and tall enough that it makes it a bit tougher for things to get in there and damage the legs of the SGRAM chips.

If you look at the number of Voodoo 3 (or even Banshee) cards being sold for parts or defective compared to later cards or older cards with more fragile designs, it pretty much tells the whole story.

This was my take on for cooling my Voodoo3's about 3 years ago but never ended up 3D printing it as my printer has been broken since. it uses two Noctua NF-A4x10 and two 3D printed parts screwed together and the whole assembly just snapped on the stock heatsink with tabs without any modifications to the card and heatsink:

a_h_adl wrote on 2023-02-20, 08:32:

This was my take on for cooling my Voodoo3's about 3 years ago but never ended up 3D printing it as my printer has been broken s […]
Show full quote

This was my take on for cooling my Voodoo3's about 3 years ago but never ended up 3D printing it as my printer has been broken since. it uses two Noctua NF-A4x10 and two 3D printed parts screwed together and the whole assembly just snapped on the stock heatsink with tabs without any modifications to the card and heatsink:

Voodoo 3 3000 001.jpg
Voodoo 3 3000 002.jpg
Voodoo 3 3000 003.jpg
Voodoo 3 3000 004.jpg
Voodoo 3 3000 005.jpg

That is amazing! Any chance of making this available for others to print?