Have you got a PCI card you can boot with alongside the Voodoo3 to see if it appears in Device Manager, or is readable by the BIOS flash utiity?

paradigital wrote on 2021-09-17, 19:02:

Have you got a PCI card you can boot with alongside the Voodoo3 to see if it appears in Device Manager, or is readable by the BIOS flash utiity?

I'll try that - I have a PCI Matrox I can install.

I already sent a message to the seller explaining my problem and saying I suspect the card is dead, asking when he last confirmed it working. He read my message but hasn't responded. That's not very encouraging.

Try reflashing it. I've revived one dead V3 like that. Of course check for physical damage first.

kixs wrote on 2021-09-17, 19:59:

Try reflashing it. I've revived one dead V3 like that. Of course check for physical damage first.

Well I installed a PCI card and the Voodoo 3 would not get detected in WIndows 98. Do you still think you can flash it that way? Can you do it with a PCi card active?

Check this thread about it:
Voodoo3, no picture issue

My card was dead - no signal, nothing. I used one other PCI card - like standard S3 Trio64 for booting. Voodoo3 has to be installed too and than flashed it with a proper BIOS. After it worked fine.

If you insert both PCI and AGP video cards, check your motherboard BIOS if there is a setting that disables one or the other bus. Or else you won't be able to detect it.

I'm not sure if win98 will detect dual video cards but the 3dfx bios Flash utility can detect the card:
https://3dfxbios.cl-rahden.de/index.php?title=Flash-Tools

Note that the utility might not work on all 3dfx rom chips. Refer to the readme for this.

Hezus wrote on 2021-09-18, 08:39:

If you insert both PCI and AGP video cards, check your motherboard BIOS if there is a setting that disables one or the other bus […]
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If you insert both PCI and AGP video cards, check your motherboard BIOS if there is a setting that disables one or the other bus. Or else you won't be able to detect it.

I'm not sure if win98 will detect dual video cards but the 3dfx bios Flash utility can detect the card:
https://3dfxbios.cl-rahden.de/index.php?title=Flash-Tools

Note that the utility might not work on all 3dfx rom chips. Refer to the readme for this.

There's no such setting - but if I insert both PCI and AGP card, set it to "PCI init" instead of "AGP init" it still gives the beeps but boots so I assume the AGP bus is not deactivated.

I'll try the BIOS update program - if it detects the card, I'll flash it to the most recent BIOS. I see they added BIOS support so who knows. Still, this motherboard is from 1999 and the Voodoo 3 3000 I have has a 4 next to the AGP connector which tells me it's a later model.

OK it works!

I did the following in case someone else runs into the issue:

- first installed a PCI 2D card (Matrox Mystique) without Voodoo 3
- set BIOS to run from PCI first
- installed drivers for 2D card (you might think this is optional but until I did, the next steps didn't work - maybe it's because resources were not properly allocated?)
- installed Voodoo3 in AGP slot
- boot using PCI card as 2D card in Windows
- check to see if Windows detects the Voodoo 3 card - it did
- install the Voodoo 3 drivers - important! Before I did this, the flash utility would fail to recognize the card
- reboot
- use the flash tool and had to try a few ROM files - one worked perfectly (a smaller one in size - 32kb)
- removed PCI card
- rebooted

And voila no more beeps.

Also, again in case someone else runs into this problem, my PC behaved liked this (I found an old topic from 2009 with 100% the same problem):

- Voodoo 3 card inserted gives a long and three short beeps and no image appears
- if you let the PC run, you can see the hardware starts booting so it's loading Windows 98
- at a certain point as it's about go detect the hardware in Windows (I think, there's no image), the PC shuts down by itself

Inserting a PCI card and giving BIOS priority to it, will boot WITHOUT beeps (I was wrong earlier that it still beeped with the PCI card installed - apparently it was easy for the PCI card to not be pushed deep enough in the case I'm using) and will let Windows 98 see the Voodoo 3 card. I can even install drivers and Windows will say the card is working perfectly. It just won't give an image upon booting from the card until the BIOS was reflashed.

I honestly didn't think this would work since it makes little sense - the seller gave me evidence the card was working before he pulled it out of the system and even more, his old system has IDENTICAL chipset to mine. In fact the two motherboards are incredibly similar.

Great outcome!

Nice to hear a success story like this.

May your Voodoo3 serve you well, for many years to come!

red_avatar wrote on 2021-09-18, 11:34:

OK it works! […]
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OK it works!

I did the following in case someone else runs into the issue:

- first installed a PCI 2D card (Matrox Mystique) without Voodoo 3
- set BIOS to run from PCI first
- installed drivers for 2D card (you might think this is optional but until I did, the next steps didn't work - maybe it's because resources were not properly allocated?)
- installed Voodoo3 in AGP slot
- boot using PCI card as 2D card in Windows
- check to see if Windows detects the Voodoo 3 card - it did
- install the Voodoo 3 drivers - important! Before I did this, the flash utility would fail to recognize the card
- reboot
- use the flash tool and had to try a few ROM files - one worked perfectly (a smaller one in size - 32kb)
- removed PCI card
- rebooted

And voila no more beeps.

Also, again in case someone else runs into this problem, my PC behaved liked this (I found an old topic from 2009 with 100% the same problem):

- Voodoo 3 card inserted gives a long and three short beeps and no image appears
- if you let the PC run, you can see the hardware starts booting so it's loading Windows 98
- at a certain point as it's about go detect the hardware in Windows (I think, there's no image), the PC shuts down by itself

Inserting a PCI card and giving BIOS priority to it, will boot WITHOUT beeps (I was wrong earlier that it still beeped with the PCI card installed - apparently it was easy for the PCI card to not be pushed deep enough in the case I'm using) and will let Windows 98 see the Voodoo 3 card. I can even install drivers and Windows will say the card is working perfectly. It just won't give an image upon booting from the card until the BIOS was reflashed.

I honestly didn't think this would work since it makes little sense - the seller gave me evidence the card was working before he pulled it out of the system and even more, his old system has IDENTICAL chipset to mine. In fact the two motherboards are incredibly similar.

Now that you mention it, I've had the same problem for a bit too where the v3 agp wouldn't boot. Then I'd put in an s3 pci card, boot, shut down and take out the pci for the v3 agp and it would magically work again. Never figured out what exactly caused this.

Hezus wrote on 2021-09-18, 19:36:

Now that you mention it, I've had the same problem for a bit too where the v3 agp wouldn't boot. Then I'd put in an s3 pci card, boot, shut down and take out the pci for the v3 agp and it would magically work again. Never figured out what exactly caused this.

From all the research I've done trying to fix this (Google crawled for hours) I know one thing: this freaking card has some really weird compatibility issues. Apparently it may be caused by this card drawing way more power than other cards at the time and from what I read, of all 3.3V AGP cards, this draws the most power.

It's kind of weird how they never even bothered to add a fan to the design. The Voodoo 3 gets crazy hot and a simple 60mm fan screwed onto the heat sink (its fins line up with that of 60 & 80mm fans) dropped temperatures by 15°C.

Add to it the fact that the heatsink is glued on V3 cards, making it quite painful to remove.

red_avatar wrote on 2021-09-19, 10:00:

Hezus wrote on 2021-09-18, 19:36:

Now that you mention it, I've had the same problem for a bit too where the v3 agp wouldn't boot. Then I'd put in an s3 pci card, boot, shut down and take out the pci for the v3 agp and it would magically work again. Never figured out what exactly caused this.

From all the research I've done trying to fix this (Google crawled for hours) I know one thing: this freaking card has some really weird compatibility issues. Apparently it may be caused by this card drawing way more power than other cards at the time and from what I read, of all 3.3V AGP cards, this draws the most power.

It's kind of weird how they never even bothered to add a fan to the design. The Voodoo 3 gets crazy hot and a simple 60mm fan screwed onto the heat sink (its fins line up with that of 60 & 80mm fans) dropped temperatures by 15°C.

Thermals were largely an afterthought in this era 🙁

PcBytes wrote on 2021-09-20, 17:43:

Add to it the fact that the heatsink is glued on V3 cards, making it quite painful to remove.

Only on Voodoo3 2000, on standard 3000 and 3500 they are fixed with two pins and some tin foil.

But yeah, why didn't they add a fan...back in the day (2000/2001) I had a V3 3000 running at 200/200 (standard is 166/166) with a sandwich cooling (heatsink with fan on both sides, addiotionally RAM coolers). Got this card from the four colorful letters after my V3 2000 was a warranty case (the heasink just fall of during gaming). They really could have done better, back then...

BTW the V3 2000 didn't die w/o the heatsink, suddenly there just was some garbage on the screen, but after restarting the machine with a big ventilator placed near the open case we could finish our LAN party. Today I wouldn't RMA this card, I would glue a bigger heatsink on it and add a fan... Just my Voodoo3 anecdote... 😉

kind regards
soggi

I had my V3 2000 PCI running with a 60mm on it, ran great to 190/190, artifacted after a few mins on higher, I was excited mid noughties to get my hands on a V3 3000 AGP for a couple of bucks to really see what a V3 could do, similar fan went on it.... it went to 175/175 🙁 I was a tad disappointed... my other V3 AGP I got later was only plugged in to POST once, haven't really tried that one properly yet. Nor really have I tried my other PCI one. Anyway, apart from the last PCI one they're all hiding from me at the moment, so that's something to get into another time. V3 clocktober fest, which voodoes and which voodoesn't.

Edit: you know what though, I never considered that the AGP one could have been starving for voltage, think I was on an LX440 board for that.
Edit2: Think the only two 440LX I had running at the time were a P2L97 and an AX6L so one of those maybe.

Edit3: I guess I should have more correctly stated it was maybe starving for current, when you try to suck more than the supply the voltage droops, so it kinda makes sense but technically wrong.

I really needed the sandwich cooling (V3 2k/3k has no SMD parts on the backside, V3 3500 does) to get to 200/200 (over 200 I got blue points/clouds, think this was the RAM) - w/o sandwich I came up to something like 175!?

kind regards
soggi

I have been testing a lot of video cards lately and I can confirm that some will 100% NOT work with some systems but be perfectly fine in others. The reasons for this appear random, for example a GeForce 5200 PCI does not work in a 440EX (Pentium 2 era) but works in a Socket 7 with an older Intel chipset.

Don't throw away a video card that appears dead if you're not sure and haven't tested it elsewhere.

See here for a real mystery:

Two FX 5500s but only one works in my 440EX

soggi wrote on 2021-09-20, 21:48:

PcBytes wrote on 2021-09-20, 17:43:

Add to it the fact that the heatsink is glued on V3 cards, making it quite painful to remove.

Only on Voodoo3 2000, on standard 3000 and 3500 they are fixed with two pins and some tin foil.

Mine is pretty much glued (I tried removing the heatsink and gave up in fear of ripping the chip, considering this is my only Voodoo card that's working - I am set to find a working V2 as well but funds are short right now) and no signs of tampering beforehand. And yes, it's a standard STB branded 3000.