I've also done this voltage mod using a couple of diodes to drop the voltage instead of a regulator. It works great.
Casio BE-300 Advancement Society alumni
I don't think it might always be the 3,3v problem what happens with these Rage XL rebuilt cards that sometimes works other does not. I bought one lately and there's a discussion in the forum about that and I ended up thinking that some random cards might not work even on a modern PCI bus with latest specifications compatibility.
My card which is exactly the same PCB layout of the above card only without the "test sticker" and the production time and a different flash eeprom brand, can't give signal at the VGA output on any different period PCI mainboards, from 440BX boards to some later Socket 775 ones. It is detected by the flasher tool and even seen as second video card in Win ME using an AGP card as main one but even after reflashing its bios it simply can't give any vga output and eventually would crash the boot of the o.s. from the disk boot sound. I didn't try the voltage mod cause I wasn't thinking using it in a old mainboard, more as basic video card to see if it could work nowdays in a modern GUI in linux and eventually test it later with older configs.
Imho the cards aren't obviously fake cards I suppose they should theorically work with such simple (but cheaper) PCB layout and original components, but maybe simply some random video chip might have had problems originally or after desoldering/resoldering or maybe the card not tested during the production ending with some card that might work perfectly and others that simply could have problems who knows maybe the video chip itself or the ram module (which in my case remains cold). Reading some online stores opinions it looks more or less the same situation. I suppose in some config it might be the 3,3v voltage problem but maybe other times it's the card that doesn't work.
I'm not going to say that the graphics card is not defective, but in the data sheet of the 1117 it says that it needs more components to work correctly. In my case the two graphics cards I modified worked fine on all motherboards I tested, from 430FX to KT133.
It would be a good idea to test the unmodified graphics card on a motherboard where it should work without mods.
From my tests the card I've received which as said has only a different eeprom, still a Samsung sdram module but 60ns, another brand mosfet but still the same identical PCB layout, didn't work at first in any mainboards I've got with PCI bus even on PCI-EX period chipsets, without any modifications. Only later like we tested in the other discussion, I found that reflashing the bios permitted to surpass a PCI debug card error code I had at first but still nothing is sent to the VGA output.
I still didn't change components, maybe it might be the clock IC while the mosfet is working and the eeprom flasher can read and write on it even detecting the IC version of the eeprom and the video chip (of course using two video cards for this). In my case I'd not be surprised if the sdram module is the problem considering having only a single 32bit one, compared to other cards if that is broken I'd not expect to see anything to detect the problem with any monitor signal like on a multiple ram modules layout.
The two cards I have came from eBay and from different sellers, it seems that I was lucky. I still want to buy another one or two, but I'm on other projects right now, time and money are the limits.😉
I think that the OP should test the card on a newer computer, without the mod of course, that's the best way to tell if the card is defective or not, like @386SX did.
I understand that these cards are cheap in every aspect but I also think that not testing then is a stupid risk for the manufacturer because, in the case of eBay if you ask for a refund they will lose everything, the card and the shipping cost, because they don't want to pay the shipping cost of other countries, at least, here were I live it's more expensive to return the card than the price of the card.
But reading the online users opinions there are many variable negative or positive opinions depending on many factors for these cheap cards which of course should be considered for the low cost. But for sure the one I have could not work even before starting trying the eeprom flashing. Maybe I wasn't lucky enough to get one working.
The older oem cards had a better more complete PCB design. Sometime some of these modern versions seems having some more passive smd components on the PCB while most cards are using the same above PCB layout that I imagine is the cheapest possible config.
They are cheap, it's the only definitive conclusion we are reaching. 😀
Yes I suppose that explain the problems that are added to the fact the video chip, ram module and eeprom memory are quite old too and who knows how many hours they worked probably in some retired server or oem cards or modules. Desoldering and resoldering it might be another factor too for the components stress. Too bad cause it'd nice to see more of these old component usage for old computer but maybe also newer config that only need a display adapter. At the end the Rage XL beside not even comparable to any other "GPU" of that time, was still quite capable and with many features into it.
