ifkz wrote:

This motherboard has an AGP slot, should I substitute a Voodoo3 AGP and call it a day?

Well, that all depends on exactly what you want to run and how you want to run it, doesn't it..?

Both have their good and bad points. but mainly I think V2's are popular simply for the novelty of SLI and maybe being able to have a strong D3D card in the same PC.

If you just want to play glide games and can get a V3 for a good price then go for it.
But if you still think your going to dream of that SLI setup then no matter how particle the V3 is its not going to matter in the end.

(of course you could get the V3 for now till you can get that dream SLI setup, anything 3dfx is only going to go up in value now)

ifkz wrote:

A bit of a recap: I had been assembling hardware for a month focusing on creating a Voodoo2 SLI computer based around a Pentium […]
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A bit of a recap: I had been assembling hardware for a month focusing on creating a Voodoo2 SLI computer based around a Pentium III-400 motherboard & CPU. I first found two "tested" Voodoo2 cards, more on that later. Next came a case with a side-mounted fan to keep the Voodoo2's cool. Add in an SLI bridge from Australia, some passthrough cables, and parts from my stash and I was good to get it built this weekend. Win98 SE was my target OS, and I initially tried the Fast SLI drivers and then several other driver packs. No luck! The official drivers were loaded up after an OS rebuild and I found that one card could initialize in game to garbage and the other was recognized in device manager but otherwise dead, displaying an error at the desktop level. Upon inspection both cards had bent pins all along the surface mount 3dfx ICs. Hours of straightening under a microscope got one of the cards to boot in game with correct graphics, but it is super touchy and every other time boots to corrupted game textures. The other card is still dead. I have a sinking feeling about getting my money back, but lesson learned.

So, what next?

There is an ebay seller in the Ukraine with a bunch of STB Blackmagic 12MB Voodoo2s that are advertised as almost new, with great feedback. Is this what most Voodoo2 owners do? Looks like a pair would run about $110
I see there are threads about the same corrupted texture problem developing over time. Are Voodoo2 cards a weak design? I also see 3rd party cooling solutions for these.
This motherboard has an AGP slot, should I substitute a Voodoo3 AGP and call it a day?
Has there been any success with baking these in the oven or using a heatgun to fix problem cards?

Right now Quake II is running my sole touchy Voodoo2 card for about an hour now with no corruption. It's hard to trust it though....

What board and what CPU exactly?

And it could be possible the pins were bend during shipping and got damaged afterwards the moment you applied power to them. But then again they might've been damaged already when they were delivered to your doorstep.

It's a good idea to inspect everything you get first, as this helps prevent damaging/destroying stuff for no good reason.

Still a shame to see 2 Voodoo 2s dead. Seems to happen a lot lately?

It is an early Pentium III board, slot 1, with the CPU clock at ~400Mhz (so says the control panel). I am not sure about the brand of the motherboard. It also has an AGP slot, but my ideas about having a Voodoo3 as a substitute were short lived. Not knowing when to quit, I bought two of the 12MB cards from the Ukraine. I am finding out, with older hardware, sometimes things work out the first time and sometimes a second attempt is required.

Things are not that bad with these two damaged cards, while one card is dead, the other comes up fine until a few hours in when it overheats (with a disco-morie effect on the textures last time). I will see what ebay tells me as far as shipping them back or keeping them...when they issue a verdict per shipping damage or as-is merchandise. If they are mine I might try a heat gun approach as a last ditch effort for the other card. This experience of overheating makes me want to buy some adhesive heatsinks for the 3dfx chips on the new cards and surviving card to aid in cooling.

If you want, you could show us a couple pics of the board. Particularly one of the entire board and perhaps a couple ones of some of the printing on some sticker or so.

Quite often there is a mark of the brand on the board (sometimes it's on the chipset heatsink) and in a few cases it's on the back of the board. It may also be on the bottom of the bottom ISA slot. It differs.

A pic of the CPU might also help, but probably it's a Pentium II (or maybe a Celeron or even a downclocked Katmai).

If it's a Pentium II, you might be lucky if it's not fully multiplier locked (but those are kinda rare so don't overclock it till it fries).

Thanks Tetrium, glad I took a look at this, I might gain 133Mhz!
The CPU is in a slot 1 and has the stamp 533b\512\133\2.0V
It has a jumper on 4.5X, and another on Auto (with other options of 66m, 100m, 110m, 124m, 133m, etc)

The motherboard is marked as a EP-BX3

One question: is there a favorite stick-on heatsink for the 3dfx chips on Voodoo2 cards? Here are two item numbers I found on ebay. If anyone knows better ways for ebay links, please let me know.
252023651723
130791989438

It's a Katmai (first gen P3) and its FSB is 133MHz
You can tell by the part number, CPU-World has a dedicated page about how to read CPU part numbers, including your Pentium III

The jumper is kinda irrelevant, as your CPU is most likely completely multiplier locked. So you can set it to whatever you want and it won't change the CPU multiplier (the CPU will ignore it).