saw a lot of such glitches. only the chip replacement would fix that. at least only this worked for me.

Note: just found this thread where a similar issue with "horizontal lines" was reported. In his case, replacing the secondary memory chips fixed his problem.
Need help reviving a V5 5500...

I think that I can narrow this down quite a bit now:

1. The primary VSA100 is bad or has a bad solder connection
2. One of the primary memory chips is bad

Thanks all for your input. I'm now waiting for more tools to arrive.
I plan on trying reflowing the primary VSA100 first. If that doesn't do the trick, I'll have to consider replacing the VSA100 (which I am not comfortable with at the moment, I'll have to research it). I'm also tempted to try replacing a primary memory chip or two, as that is much easier than a VSA-100 replacement.

I suspect the primary VSA-100 the most, as single chip mode does nothing to eliminate the scan lines (this eliminates the secondary VSA-100 and all of its associated memory from being at fault). I also suspect if it was a memory issue, I would see corrupted textures on objects, and I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing horizontal lines on the viewport, they aren't on objects. I can't say for certain it is the VSA-100 as I'm not an expert on how the voodoo 5 works, but this makes sense to me. Furthermore, if Video Memory stress Test v1.7 is only seeing the primary memory (I believe it does?), it came back clean in a memory test, so that would mean the primary ram chips are fine.

Razer357 wrote on 2023-01-15, 17:08:

I plan on trying reflowing the primary VSA100 first.

I STRONGLY advise against that if you don't have the experience or the proper tools. Reflowing is much more complicated than some people think it is.
If you don't do it properly, you actually risk bricking your card.

Ok, what would you recommend?

bloodem wrote on 2023-01-15, 17:38:

Razer357 wrote on 2023-01-15, 17:08:

I plan on trying reflowing the primary VSA100 first.

I STRONGLY advise against that if you don't have the experience or the proper tools. Reflowing is much more complicated than some people think it is.
If you don't do it properly, you actually risk bricking your card.

Ok I did some research on reflowing, and I’m not going to do it at this time (thanks bloodem).

My procedure through this whole process is to try minimal risk solutions first. I’ll post updates as I have more to share, currently I’m waiting for better tools to come in. Thanks all.

If you think it's RAM, then I'd recommend squeezing the chips. Sometimes you can find a bad connection that way.

That's more likely chip silicon degradation. Squeezing won't do anything.

If 150mhz is fine, maybe better cooling will do something? Try pointing some big extra fans at the card first and see how it does.

maestro wrote on 2023-01-15, 20:44:

If you think it's RAM, then I'd recommend squeezing the chips. Sometimes you can find a bad connection that way.

The RAM chip is most likely flush to the PCB. Pushing it even harder to the PCB is unlikely to do anything, even if a solder connection of the RAM chip is broken. A broken solder connection, that only barely makes contact with the PCB is a possible explanation for the issue, even for the sucess achieved by downclocking: At higher clocks, the chip has to drive the data lines faster to provide reliable output. If the connection is bad, there is a limit on how fast the data lines can be driven.

To test for bad solder joints at the RAM chips, you can use a plastic thingy with a not too sharp tip, and slowly slide it over the legs of the RAM chip while the card is operating. In a squeeze, you can use your finger nails as substitute. If touching the RAM pins with an insulating tool changes the amount of banding, you have found a bad connection. Reflowing a RAM chip after you have confirmed that this chip has a broken solder joint using a hot air reworking tool (home improvement hot-air guns have a much wider hot air output than the nozzle of an SMD rework station) is a quite low-risk task, as long as you keep the temperature at a sensible level (like 350°C).

I know, it was meant to be more of a dismissive comment.

Squeezing chips is also my only trick. I once saved an expensive video card with horizontal banding by squeezing chips, then quadrants, then probing legs with a plastic thingy, and finally heating the leg with a radioshack soldering iron. I want to do more repairs like recap motherboards and replace memory chips on a video card but I need equipment and there's always another expense.

Anyway, Serpent Rider, mkarcher, thanks for your posts, here and elsewhere on the board. I read them.

To update everyone, the issue was in fact the VSA-100 chip, not the memory. It has been sent off for repairs.