First post, by lemonlime
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi All,
I picked up a cheap ‘untested, as-is' CT6670 8MB Voodoo 2 on eBay from a local seller recently. I could see a few issues in the eBay listing, but the damage was more extensive when I received it and did a more thorough inspection.
Top/bottom images before replacing components:
Missing surface mount components:
C9 broken off (rear, near SLI connector, 3.3-4.7uF, minimum 6.3V, 1206 cap)
C48 broken off (front, bottom right corner, 1nF 25V 0603 cap)
C128 broken off (rear, near 500-0010-01 chip, 100nf 25V)
C81 broken off (rear, near 500-0010-01 chip, 1nF 25V 0603 cap)
C108 broken off (rear, near 500-0010-01 chip, 1nF 25V 0603 cap)
Other damage:
Some bent pins on the 3dfx component chips.
Bent PCI bracket near VGA output and trace damage.
I tested it initially after straightening out all of the bent component chip legs (took a long time with a magnifying glass and razor) and making sure nothing was shorting out. I got no video signal at all (passthrough or otherwise), but the card was detected successfully in Windows 98SE and the drivers installed without an issue. Trying to go to the Voodoo2 control panel would cause the system to hang immediately.
After testing with a multimeter, I found two of the traces didn’t have continuity near the VGA output. I soldered a couple temporary jumper wires to test, and that fixed the VGA output issue. I got passthrough video working successfully, but the system would hang whenever going to the Voodoo 2 control panel or launching a glide game.
With the help of sdz in Voodoo 2 component map , I identified all the missing surface mount components and soldered them back on. Some of the capacitors were tiny, but I was very careful to ensure there was good pad contact. I also spent a lot of time very carefully inspecting all the component chip legs with a magnifying glass and razor blade. I was really hoping this would have done the trick, but I’m still seeing the same behavior.
I tried to launch MOJO.EXE in a real DOS 6.22 environment, but it would constantly hang the system shortly after launching. I redirected the debugging output to console and see the following:
Here are numerous high-resolution photos of the component repairs, trace damage etc.
Trace damage before/after repair:
Component repairs:
Any ideas why the card keeps hanging during initialization? Think there is any hope of reviving this card?
Thanks,
Mike