Troubleshooting Faulty Voodoo 2 Card (Monster 3D II 12MB) \ VOGONS

Troubleshooting Faulty Voodoo 2 Card (Monster 3D II 12MB)

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First post, by dbaronjr

Posted on 2024-12-29, 20:16

dbaronjr Offline

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I recently got a pair of Diamond Monster 3D II cards that were listed as untested on Yahoo Auctions Japan. The 1st card is working perfectly fine, while the other one is having issues.

The faulty card will show up in device manager in Windows 98 SE, as well as properly pass through a video signal through the loopback cable connected to my AGP card. However, whenever I try to launch any game/application that attempts to use the card, that app will completely lock up. This includes just attempting to view display properties, and no error messages are popping up either. I'm unable to run mojo to diagnose the card due to the same issue.

There were a couple bent legs on the left side TMU that I fixed before powering the card up, nothing major. There was also a trace on the back of the card that was missing a good portion of solder mask, but it still had continuity to the resistor that the via led to (I still strengthened the trace with some solder). Other than those two things, no missing components and no other damage that's immediately apparent. I tested all of the resistors for continuity, and they all passed.

This card definitely seems worth saving, what else can I try? Reflowing the TMU chips perhaps?

Reply 1 of 7, by analog_programmer

Posted on 2024-12-29, 21:42

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Try MOJO.EXE reports/logs.

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Reply 2 of 7, by dbaronjr

Posted on 2024-12-30, 00:12

dbaronjr Offline

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analog_programmer wrote on 2024-12-29, 21:42:

Try MOJO.EXE reports/logs.

That doesn't work in this case unfortunately. Mojo hangs as soon as it tries to run with the faulty card. It runs and reports normally with my working card.

Reply 3 of 7, by byte_76

Posted on 2024-12-30, 05:40

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I had the same issue with my Voodoo 1 and it turned out to be some loose pins on the TMU.

Try to carefully check all the legs of the TMU's and frame buffer chip.

Test each of the resistor packs to confirm that they are reading correctly. I believe most of the them are 22 Ohm and are marked 220. It looks like others are 47 Ohm and marked 470 but not sure because the picture aren't clear enough to see that fine detail.

Let's see if that provides any results.

Reply 4 of 7, by Postman5

Posted on 2024-12-30, 07:01

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Check inductors FB1, FB2, FB7
They often have cracks and conductivity is impaired

Reply 5 of 7, by analog_programmer

Posted on 2024-12-30, 11:24

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dbaronjr wrote on 2024-12-30, 00:12:

That doesn't work in this case unfortunately. Mojo hangs as soon as it tries to run with the faulty card. It runs and reports normally with my working card.

🤣 I mean to use mojo's output or log files, not command line "mojo reports/logs".

See this part of the video on how to use MOJO.EXE in DOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFucW4uB5k&t=340s

Reply 6 of 7, by dbaronjr

Posted on 2025-01-03, 01:48

dbaronjr Offline

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Finally checking back in here with: Some Success!

There was indeed a crack in FB1. I put in a replacement and immediately off the bat I was now able to open display settings with no issues and see SLI enabled. However, it seems that the cards are having trouble initializing Glide. The exception so far seems to be launching Unreal and switching the rendering mode to Glide (despite repeatedly setting it to Glide, it always defaults back to Direct3D). Trying to launch anything else like the 3dfx donut demo or Unreal Tournament with Glide continues to lock up.

I'm currently using the official Diamond Monster 3D II drivers from Phil's website, should I try a different driver? I'll also circle back to mojo and try to generate a log output sometime this weekend, but in the meantime, mojo does run and complete normally.

Reply 7 of 7, by dbaronjr

Posted on 2025-01-07, 01:57

dbaronjr Offline

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Forgot to follow up, but everything is working now! I installed the latest reference driver from Phil's website to replace the Diamond driver and everything now launches without any issues.

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