VOGONS


First post, by Kizmo

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Hi all and greetings from Finland!

I have retail version of V5 5500 AGP, it has physical damage under the edge of slave VSA-100 chip. Someone (=me 15 years ago..) tried to pry off the heatsink and tool (small flat head) got accidentally between pcb and the slave ic which killed the card. Recently I found it from my junk box and gave it a test it few days ago, it boots up fine, drivers install, 2D works at high res and 32bit color. Single chip 3D works fin, dual chip 3D crashes instantly with green bars.

The chip itself looks ever so slightly bent/cracked so its safe to assume its no good anymore. I can see there are some broken traces on the PCB. There is no other damage to be seen under microscope.

Trace repair will require pulling the VSA-100 off from the board and i may have to run some jumpers under the BGA ic which is always fun task. 😠

But the question is, where to get a VSA-100 replacement, i can see there are some on AliExpress but who knows if they are any good or even VSA-100 at all.

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 1 of 49, by Kizmo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEEHjaTSAEA

Small update. Part 2 of 2 will be out once i get the replacement chip and some tools.

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 2 of 49, by havli

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Interesting topic. I hope you will be able to repair your Voodoo5. 😀

I have similar problem on one of my V5, only in this case primary VSA-100 is damaged. At first it showed artifacts in BIOS and locked up after driver install, now it doesn't even POST. I think replacing the VSA chip might fix my card. However it seems finding spare VSA-100 (that doesn't cost a fortune) is not so easy anymore. Also I am not very confident in replacing the chip myself... and pay professional company to do that is rather expensive.

HW museum.cz - my collection of PC hardware

Reply 3 of 49, by Kizmo

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If my source for VSA-100 chips turns out the be good i can offer my services for reasonable price.

In my case the damaged chip was removed with hot air but new chip will be soldered with professional rework machine ( https://www.kurtzersa.com/electronics-product … r-pl-550-1.html ). I have bad experiences trying to solder large BGA chips by handheld hot air station 😀

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 4 of 49, by chrismeyer6

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I just watched your video and I have to say nice job on the removal of the old chip. I really hope you can get your voodoo fixed up and running again.

Reply 6 of 49, by Kizmo

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Cyrix200+ wrote:

I'm curious. With the VSA-100 removed, does it still work the way it did when it was still there?

Now that is a really good question. Hmm, should I try it?

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 7 of 49, by Justin1091

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Very interesting! I also may have a bad 2nd chip on my card, but with some tweaks it runs. Can't find any companies that could replace a chip on it anyway.

I wouldn't try to start it with 1 chip maybe you mess something up and bought those replacement chips for nothing! It's interesting, but not worth the risk imo.

Don't know shit about it, but with the scratched chip the power from the PC psu still went to it, if you remove it won't powering the card up overload other parts of the card?

Reply 8 of 49, by aaronkatrini

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Did you already order the VSA-100 chip? I think some time ago, there was a seller from Spain selling them for a reasonable price.
I find your project very interesting. Hopefully you will manage to fix your card.
Please update us with the progress!

Reply 10 of 49, by Kizmo

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VSA-100 Chips arrived from china, things are looking good! Left is what i got from china and right is the old damaged chip.

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Links to hi-res pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g07a1xk4c1xzwa3/frontside.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0gdz63obmmv20r0/backside.jpg?dl=0

Next step is to repair the pcb, there are traces that need some love. Sadly my UV cure solder mask resin was expired so we need to wait for new syringe to arrive.

Meanwhile i will get my BGA machine running and dialed in.

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 14 of 49, by Kizmo

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Stupid real life stuff is throttling me down. First my car broke down, then i got pretty bad cold and now its terribly busy at work 😵

I have been practicing with reballing and resoldering several Voodoo 5 era cards from ATi and Nvidia just to make sure i have good settings gor my Ersa BGA machine. This is kind of one shot deal. No quick resets if something goes badly wrong.

Turns out these old and large epoxy filled and thin edged BGA chips are surprisingly difficult to get soldered properly (and by properly i mean it must pass visual inspection under microscope, chip must be flat, straight, and balls need to be shiny and well formed). It took several iterations of ramp settings and other stuff to get my process to more or less stable and repeatable.

..to be continued

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 15 of 49, by Paadam

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You should definitely heat the board from underside also. I changed out CPU on my X32 motherboard with the low voltage Pentium M Dothan from X41 with just bare temperature controllable heat gun. Bought correct stencil, balls and BGA soldering flux before. Worked nicely and still does as a car diagnostic computer in my friends garage 😀
Did it just because I wanted to do it and make something unique 😀

That said, I also have V5 5500 that worked last time I used my W98 rig but after being in storage for few months it now posts with artifacts. Not sure if it is memory or damaged VSA.

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 16 of 49, by Kizmo

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Paadam wrote:

You should definitely heat the board from underside also. I changed out CPU on my X32 motherboard with the low voltage Pentium M Dothan from X41 with just bare temperature controllable heat gun. Bought correct stencil, balls and BGA soldering flux before. Worked nicely and still does as a car diagnostic computer in my friends garage 😀
Did it just because I wanted to do it and make something unique 😀

That said, I also have V5 5500 that worked last time I used my W98 rig but after being in storage for few months it now posts with artifacts. Not sure if it is memory or damaged VSA.

My Ersa station ( https://www.kurtzersa.com/electronics-product … r-pl-550-1.html ) has infrared heaters on both sides and have been fine tuning my process to get it just right. Its a different world working on these old things. I have mostly worked on modern game consoles and lead free reflows.

Your V5 sounds like it can be both, bad memory and/or bad master VSA-100. Bad enough luck and it can be both 😠

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 17 of 49, by meljor

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Kizmo wrote:
Paadam wrote:

You should definitely heat the board from underside also. I changed out CPU on my X32 motherboard with the low voltage Pentium M Dothan from X41 with just bare temperature controllable heat gun. Bought correct stencil, balls and BGA soldering flux before. Worked nicely and still does as a car diagnostic computer in my friends garage 😀
Did it just because I wanted to do it and make something unique 😀

That said, I also have V5 5500 that worked last time I used my W98 rig but after being in storage for few months it now posts with artifacts. Not sure if it is memory or damaged VSA.

My Ersa station ( https://www.kurtzersa.com/electronics-product … r-pl-550-1.html ) has infrared heaters on both sides and have been fine tuning my process to get it just right. Its a different world working on these old things. I have mostly worked on modern game consoles and lead free reflows.

Your V5 sounds like it can be both, bad memory and/or bad master VSA-100. Bad enough luck and it can be both 😠

Could also be just a bit of corrosion/bad connection on the agp connector or the motherboard. Try cleaning that first! Had this happen with voodoo3's in the past.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
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Reply 18 of 49, by Kizmo

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Progress!

PCB surgery is now finally done.

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This is how it looked after the part one. Screw driver damage.

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Masked, scraped, tinned. Using leaded solder and Louis Rossmann approved amount of flux.

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All done, little bit of UV cure resin will hold these repairs in place during reflow. It is very important not to encapsulate repairs like this completely since the solder will melt and expand during the BGA reflow. I have learned that the hard way 🤣

The wire i used was little bit on the large side but the repair should clear the BGA chip ok... i hope. We will find out tomorrow.

3DFX - Gone but never forgotten

Reply 19 of 49, by Paadam

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Great work!! Can I send my V5 to you for repair? 😀

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)