Help reviving a Voodoo 2 \ VOGONS

Help reviving a Voodoo 2

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First post, by Joakim

Posted on 2021-06-13, 06:04

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I have a voodoo 2 card, I believe it is the creative 8mb one. It was very dirty when i bought it and after cleaning it up it was recognised by windows and it was possible to install the drivers.

I was a happy camper for a short while but then when I started up a 3dfx game it crashed. Sometimes I could see the 3dfz logo very "far away". I'm not sure but I also thought that the memory info was not accurate.

Taking out the card again I found that 2 caps are actually missing from the board. (Sad camper by now.) My thought is that the card is not completely dead so I was thinking I might try to replace them and see what happens.

Looking at some videos it doesn't look that hard if you have the right tools. But how do I know which replacement caps to get?

One of them is c145 in the middle of the board and the other one is c118, close to one of the empty ram sockets. If the pics are bad I can take other ones.

Of course I will start practicing on something else, and if I really feel that I wont be able to do this when I start I guess I'll just ask for help in a local Facebook group but never the less I need the right caps.

Any insight is welcome. 😀

Reply 1 of 8, by Intel486dx33

Posted on 2021-06-13, 06:25

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I would try to find photos of the same card to compare with.

Reply 2 of 8, by Doornkaat

Posted on 2021-06-13, 07:12

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C145 is most likely identical to C148. If you have a multimeter that can measure capacitance unsolder C148 and measure its capacitance to find the correct value for C145. Concerning voltage 12V puts you on the safe side.
I believe C145 is related to the TMU on the other side. The issues you describe could be linked to instability on the TMU. It's definitely worth a shot! SMD soldering is a bit scary at first but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly and the capacitor and pads are pretty large so with a bit of prior practice I think you can totally do it.
C118 is only relevant if a RAM chip is installed on the empty pads next to it.

Good luck! 😃🤞

Reply 3 of 8, by Hoping

Posted on 2021-06-13, 09:44

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Take a look at this Voodoo 2 component map

Reply 4 of 8, by Joakim

Posted on 2021-06-13, 10:31

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Doornkaat wrote on 2021-06-13, 07:12:
C145 is most likely identical to C148. If you have a multimeter that can measure capacitance unsolder C148 and measure its capac […]
Show full quote

C145 is most likely identical to C148. If you have a multimeter that can measure capacitance unsolder C148 and measure its capacitance to find the correct value for C145. Concerning voltage 12V puts you on the safe side.
I believe C145 is related to the TMU on the other side. The issues you describe could be linked to instability on the TMU. It's definitely worth a shot! SMD soldering is a bit scary at first but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly and the capacitor and pads are pretty large so with a bit of prior practice I think you can totally do it.
C118 is only relevant if a RAM chip is installed on the empty pads next to it.

Good luck! 😃🤞

I find it strange that they would put unnecessarily components on a board. But maybe it has to do with mass production?

Creative were in a hurry to release the 12 mb card and won the race for the first voodoo 2 according to an article I read once.

Hoping wrote on 2021-06-13, 09:44:
Take a look at this Voodoo 2 component map

Wow amazing thread. Thank you for your the heads up!

Reply 5 of 8, by Joakim

Posted on 2021-06-13, 21:11

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My cheap multimeter does not have a fancy capacitor meter, so I built my own using an old Arduino board.

I measured a capacitor that I thought was from this voodoo board but obviously it's not, as it is 2uF. I might have an other damaged board 🤣.

Reply 6 of 8, by chrismeyer6

Posted on 2021-06-14, 01:18

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I would check all of major chips to make sure that none of the legs are touching and shorting out. It's actually a quite common thing

Reply 7 of 8, by anakin94

Posted on 2021-06-14, 07:27

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It seems there is a damaged area and it looks like that some legs are bridged.
I marked them on your picture.

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Reply 8 of 8, by Joakim

Posted on 2021-06-14, 08:21

Joakim Offline

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anakin94 wrote on 2021-06-14, 07:27:

It seems there is a damaged area and it looks like that some legs are bridged.
I marked them on your picture.

Yeah, thanks they were in that pic. It was taken before cleaning... It was extremely dirty. I have no idea what why it dipped in nougat, maybe it is a preservation technique? 😁

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