VOGONS


First post, by 3dfx_fan

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I bought this card. Seller claimed it works and in the description it said 'tested' (in personal communication he said it was tested in 3DMark and works ok) and he has 100% positive feedback. But I have problems with it.
It works fine until I install drivers for it. After installing drivers and restart, it hangs/freezes at Windows 9x start and in Windows 98 SE I get BSOD (0E in 0167:BFF83BFC) at start. In Windows 2000 it did not freeze/hang/BSOD at start but it became extremely slow and unresponsive and not really useable and Task Manager showed 100% CPU use. After uninstalling 3dfx drivers it becomes normal again.
The card does not have any graphical issues/glitches and after driver install and reset pulpit clearly is at 800x600 and in higher color (so driver works?).
I tried various systems (Asus P3B-F and Asrock 775i65G) diffrent OSes (Win 98/ME/2000), different 3dfx drivers (official, x3dfx, Raziel), diffrent PCI slots and in Win9x different DirectX versions and always used clean installs. Results were always the same.
Any help/suggestions?
This is the one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/336172941601
I tested with only this card plugged to AGP/PCI/ISA slots and nothing else.
I did never had such problems with 3dfx Voodoo 1/2/3. Never had VSA-100 card before. This is my first and I am already beginning to dislike this newer architecture.

Reply 1 of 2, by 3dfx_fan

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Problems in Windows 2000 start as soon as I install drivers even before restart. Now I know what caused those problems. I focused on testing DVI and forgot to try VGA. I now tried VGA and it works fine. Seems that the flashed BIOS is not 100% compatible with this card and after installing drivers DVI starts to have problems (VGA does not have problems). The BIOS used is "V4 4500 PCI SD 1.18 DVI" and card has Silicon Image SiI164CT64 TMDS chip. So which/what BIOS file should I use for this card to get digital output DVI working correctly and where to find it (link)?

Reply 2 of 2, by 3dfx_fan

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Tried all BIOSes for PC I could find for PCI variant of this card with DVI support and effect was always the same (in Win98SE I get BSOD, in WinME it freezes/hangs, in Win2000 100% CPU usage, extreme slowness and overall unresponsivness) or worse when using DVI (but when using VGA everything was ok). I think something is/was wrong with the card. I returned it.