A voodoo3 will hardly ever be fixed my baking. Baking is best used on card that have tin solder with can crack with age unlike led solder that the Voodoo3 likely has.
I never seen flux used when backing. Id not want to use it as it could lead to a mess of the oven and card. As for the card artifacting. Have you tried down clocking the card or any other troubleshooting aside form trying the card in a different system?

Before you jump into that, make sure the TIM hasn't degraded and the core is simply overheating.

Con 2 botones wrote:

Argh...¡no!
My precious Voodoo 3 3000 started to show some "artifacting"!

Define that "artifacting", or show a picture.

dan86 wrote:

A voodoo3 will hardly ever be fixed my baking. Baking is best used on card that have tin solder with can crack with age unlike led solder that the Voodoo3 likely has.
I never seen flux used when backing. Id not want to use it as it could lead to a mess of the oven and card. As for the card artifacting. Have you tried down clocking the card or any other troubleshooting aside form trying the card in a different system?

Underclocking I haven´t tried, but in case it matters, I never overclocked it. One day it was working perfect, the next this problem developed.

I used the 3dfx uninstaller tool and reinstalled the drivers (1.07.00-whql) twice. I don´t think it is necessary to reinstall the system since, as mentioned before, same behaviour is seen in another machine with W98se.

What else would you suggest?

Thank you!

Vaudane wrote:

Before you jump into that, make sure the TIM hasn't degraded and the core is simply overheating.

What exactly is the "TIM"?

Thank you!

derSammler wrote:

Con 2 botones wrote:

Argh...¡no!
My precious Voodoo 3 3000 started to show some "artifacting"!

Define that "artifacting", or show a picture.

I am not at home right now, but I will post a picture later.
By "artifacting" I meant small coloured pixels appearing randomly in different parts of the screen. Sometimes some letters in the desktop icons will "disappear" and if you refresh or move the mouse cursor over them, they reappear.

Thank you!

Con 2 botones wrote:

Vaudane wrote:

Before you jump into that, make sure the TIM hasn't degraded and the core is simply overheating.

What exactly is the "TIM"?

Thank you!

I guess this is the answer:
https://www.overclock.net/forum/246-air-cooli … s-tim-mean.html

brostenen wrote:

Con 2 botones wrote:

Vaudane wrote:

Before you jump into that, make sure the TIM hasn't degraded and the core is simply overheating.

What exactly is the "TIM"?

Thank you!

I guess this is the answer:
https://www.overclock.net/forum/246-air-cooli … s-tim-mean.html

Ah, that surely was what he was referring to, sorry.
I am so used to the terms "thermal paste", never heard about its proper full name... TIM = Thermal Interface Material.

The "artifacting" shows as soon as I get to the desktop, when I´ve just powered the PC on. So, to be honest I don´t think it is an overheating case.
Still, I will replace the TIM with Artic Cooling MX4 I have around, just in case.

Thank you!

Could be caps, could be the core chip, could be ram.

You should downclock the core and see if it goes away, and then the ram, and then both. This can reveal what is failing.

Con 2 botones wrote:

Ah, that surely was what he was referring to, sorry. I am so used to the terms "thermal paste", never heard about its proper fu […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote:

I guess this is the answer:
https://www.overclock.net/forum/246-air-cooli … s-tim-mean.html

Ah, that surely was what he was referring to, sorry.
I am so used to the terms "thermal paste", never heard about its proper full name... TIM = Thermal Interface Material.

The "artifacting" shows as soon as I get to the desktop, when I´ve just powered the PC on. So, to be honest I don´t think it is an overheating case.
Still, I will replace the TIM with Artic Cooling MX4 I have around, just in case.

Thank you!

Yup! Thermal Interface Material! Sorry, force of jargon habit.

Thermal paste should be replaced at least every 3-5 years on anything that uses thermal paste. After that when it dries out it acts more as an insulator than a thermal conductor. Heat and voltage are the two main things that cause artefacting on any gpu. As previous poster said, make sure none of the electrolytics are bulging. A photo of the card would help us diagnose it.

Do let us know!

Don't bake it.

It ends up terribly for old cards like this.

I tried to bake a Rage Fury Maxx and ended up completely burning the card even at temperatures that should have been completely fine according to the procedure for modern cards.

The kind of solder these cards have is really different.

RoyBatty wrote:

Could be caps, could be the core chip, could be ram.

You should downclock the core and see if it goes away, and then the ram, and then both. This can reveal what is failing.

Core clock and ram clock are linked on the voodoo3. You can't change them separately.

Ahh, I haven't got one anymore so forgot.

appiah4 wrote:

Don't bake it. […]
Show full quote

Don't bake it.

It ends up terribly for old cards like this.

I tried to bake a Rage Fury Maxx and ended up completely burning the card even at temperatures that should have been completely fine according to the procedure for modern cards.

The kind of solder these cards have is really different.

^
THIS.
I made mistake on voodoo 5500 PCI with baking. Didn't end well.

Sorry for the delay and thank you very much to you all for the feedback! Busy days, but reporting back now.

Ok, no baking then...

Tests carried out:
- I replaced the (unmodified, original) thermal solution with Artic Cooling MX4, following "Vaudane" advice. Nothing changed...

- I tried what suggested by "Roy Batty", using "Voodoo Control" I downclocked the GPU core and RAM to its minimum allowed (that tool won´t let you modify Core and Ram separately) Didn´t notice any difference.
Still getting "artifacts" and patterns of image corruption:

- Lowered resolution, color depth and refresh rate (from 75hz to 60hz). Problem persists

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some things to notice:
- I ran a Direct Draw (dxdiag) test and it finished correctly. But when I ran the Direct3D one it crashed.
- Half Life (OpenGL) executes and shows no corruption. When I tried to switch it to DirectX mode, it crashed.
- Most DOS games I tried (QuakeGL, DukeNukem3D, DoomII) execute with almost no curruption (although Epic Pinball does show some "broken pixels"). Nevertheless, tried Expendable and it starts loading but never starts playing. Dethcarz or POD won´t even start loading.
Diablo and Dune 2000 played perfectly with no image corruption.

Inspecting visually the card, I don´t see anything bad in the front side. In the rear, on the other hand, I did notice a small "scratch" that crosses some bus lines, doesn´t seem deep enough though. What´s your opinion?
I´m not sure if the scratch was there before when the card worked perfectly. Frankly, I don´t recall any move that may have caused it either.
Do you think it may have something to do. Could it be repaired?

Looks like a driver issue. Did you try a clean install first before you try anything else ?
But definitely don't bake the card.
Could be a Voodoo card memory chip solder issue but I don't think so. Looks more like a driver issue.
If it does not artifact in post or DOS mode then it's a driver issue.
Perform a clean install of the OS and then a clean install of the Voodoo 3 3000 driver.

Some questions:

1. Are there corruptions in BIOS or in real DOS mode, ie. without loading any Windows drivers?
2. Have you tried booting something like a live linux distro such as Puppy Linux 4.1.2 Retro to see if that works fine?
3. Is this a clean Windows install or was there a different graphics card in there before?

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Looks like a driver issue. Did you try a clean install first before you try anything else ? But definitely don't bake the card. […]
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Looks like a driver issue. Did you try a clean install first before you try anything else ?
But definitely don't bake the card.
Could be a Voodoo card memory chip solder issue but I don't think so. Looks more like a driver issue.
If it does not artifact in post or DOS mode then it's a driver issue.
Perform a clean install of the OS and then a clean install of the Voodoo 3 3000 driver.

It does artifact in DOS mode as shown in the Doom II picture above, but to a less extent. Duke Nukem 3D also shows some corruption in the menu.

I could try a fresh install in the near future, but I doubt it is a case of drivers, because it was tested in another PC and it exhibits the same behaviour.
Moreover, the whole thing started after a hot day, doing some test with a Pentium II based micro ATX chassis (with bad air flow)...I definitely shouldn´t have used it that day.

Thank you!

appiah4 wrote:

Some questions: […]
Show full quote

Some questions:

1. Are there corruptions in BIOS or in real DOS mode, ie. without loading any Windows drivers?
2. Have you tried booting something like a live linux distro such as Puppy Linux 4.1.2 Retro to see if that works fine?
3. Is this a clean Windows install or was there a different graphics card in there before?

1. Corruption does not happen in BIOS, so far. I think I haven´t tried real DOS Mode, will try and report back.
2. That´s a very good idea!
3. The latter, other cards have been tested in the system (Ati Rage 128, for instance). Point 2 test will tell us if it is a driver issue or not.

Thank you!