sdz wrote on 2024-08-23, 11:12:

@zuldan
I saw the tool, it's really nice. I'll try contacting him via Discord.

Curious to know if you managed to make contact with him?

Yes, we talked via Discord. I shared the 4444SX and VG_4440H schematics, and whatever other information I had.

I'm currently working on a faulty Voodoo2. The physical work, leg replacement/etc is mostly done.

Might the Voodoo2 FBI and TMU chip pinouts exist in the community anywhere?, to aid in my ongoing analysis.

Here you go:

sdz wrote on 2024-11-30, 10:32:

Here you go:

Awesome thanks!

thanks!

sdz wrote on 2024-11-30, 10:32:

Here you go:

Thanks a lot, that will be very helpful.

I made some composite images to use as troubleshooting aids. Sharing here in case they are of use to any other repairers. Thanks again to sdz for the pin information.

Sample of part :

Full images (2 x ~10MB .jpg) at -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mk5aYZgLmdh2 … ehJ4BiQBWa/view

edit: link has now been revised, to correct a few pin names.

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-12-05, 01:54:

I made some composite images to use as troubleshooting aids. Sharing here in case they are of use to any other repairers. Thanks […]
Show full quote

I made some composite images to use as troubleshooting aids. Sharing here in case they are of use to any other repairers. Thanks again to sdz for the pin information.

Sample of part :

The attachment sample.png is no longer available

Full images (2 x 10MB .jpg) at -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1izEGzDvFt1Dh … iew?usp=sharing

That's a really good visualisation, thanks for making it 😀 Looking at it the inside one is probably easier to read, the grounds all seem to match up with where the gaps in pins are so I think it all looks correct.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-12-05, 20:14:

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-12-05, 01:54:

I made some composite images to use as troubleshooting aids. Sharing here in case they are of use to any other repairers. Thanks […]
Show full quote

I made some composite images to use as troubleshooting aids. Sharing here in case they are of use to any other repairers. Thanks again to sdz for the pin information.

Sample of part :

The attachment sample.png is no longer available

Full images (2 x 10MB .jpg) at -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1izEGzDvFt1Dh … iew?usp=sharing

That's a really good visualisation, thanks for making it 😀 Looking at it the inside one is probably easier to read, the grounds all seem to match up with where the gaps in pins are so I think it all looks correct.

Thanks. I already found some mistakes in the transcription unfortunately. That is the risk when sharing a document immediately after making it. My diagrams mislabelled GND_CORE_1-5 as 3VC_VCC_CORE_1-5. The correct designations for those pins are as per sdz original information:

I will revise in the coming days, when time allows.

edit: Has now been revised.

First off, thanks to everyone chipping in gathering the info on lay-outs and components used. Great source of information when in a repair may be due and what to solder were.

Why am I here?
Well the one to 'blame' is 'bits und bolts', (https://www.youtube.com/@bitsundbolts) posting a YT video on V2 repair and tools used.
It sucked me right back into the old Voodoo 1/2 vibe. I felt the immediate need to get the legacy gaming rig (setup below) out from the mothballs 😉 .

At the end of the nineties, I had bought myself a Voodoo I add-on card (as many of my fellow gamers did) to provide some horse power next to a bog standard S3 graphics card.
After a catastrophic failure of the BioStar motherboard, the socket 7 system was replaced and upgraded (Pentium 200MMX, Asus mobo, Matrox MGA) and the faithfull Voodoo 2 12 MB entered my life. Shortly after the first V2 another one was bought and SLI was a fact. Well we all know how things went with 3Dfx, very quickly the SLI setup turned into a paperweight. It got wrapped and moved house a couple of times.
The relic stayed in the box like a precious gem to glance at.

So after the YT video, the idea of legacy gaming arose again. The socket 7 system was long gone, but I had different 'legacy' hardware on stock.

Setup:
Abit BH6, Intel BX440, slot 1
Intel P3-1000, S370 in a SlotKet !!! adapter running at 750 MHz (133MHz FSB CPU on a 100MHz chipset)
512 MB SDRAM PC-133
Diamond Viper V770 (Nvidia TNT-2, 32 MB)
Diamond multimedia Voodoo 2 12 MB in SLI *
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
3Com 3c905C-TX-M network card
Windows 98 SE

Since I had wrapped everything safely in bubble wrap, I was assuming it would be an easy task (insert cliff hanger) with the biggest hurdle being finding a working IDE HDD that would work on the motherboard.
I shucked a 200GB external WDAC drive from the era and off we were.

Well you have guessed it, it was bumpy. Unreal, was being difficult and only rendering in windowed mode, eventhough Windows was detecting both.
After trying endless drivers, I was able to find and download the 3Dfx SDK and diagnosis software.

According to mojo.exe one of the Voodoo 2 cards has a problem with a TMU. FBI detects 4 MB RAM, so does TMU-0, TMU-1 however claims to only find 1 MB of RAM (should be 4 MB of RAM as well).
After some individual testing, I am going to put this TMU memory detection error in as the root cause for the problems (e.g. unreal crashing) as no errors occur when using the one working Voodooo 2 card.

My question is, are there schematics of which memory banks belong to which TMU/FBI?
I would like to selectively check that area for damage/lose soldering.
Thanks for bearing with me.

Chech for loose TMU1 pins, broken traces and/or broken series resistors. I hope this helps.

sdz wrote on 2024-12-06, 17:45:

The attachment Screenshot_20241206_194336_Chrome.jpg is no longer available

Chech for loose TMU1 pins, broken traces and/or broken series resistors. I hope this helps.

Thanks!

I'll give it a go with the magnification of the soldering 'helping hand' that I have. If this isn't enough I'll have to invest in a USB microscope (amazon, et al) for a better magnification.
Keep you posted!

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-06, 22:51:

Thanks! […]
Show full quote

sdz wrote on 2024-12-06, 17:45:

The attachment Screenshot_20241206_194336_Chrome.jpg is no longer available

Chech for loose TMU1 pins, broken traces and/or broken series resistors. I hope this helps.

Thanks!

I'll give it a go with the magnification of the soldering 'helping hand' that I have. If this isn't enough I'll have to invest in a USB microscope (amazon, et al) for a better magnification.
Keep you posted!

If I could offer a word of advice, it's to take a very cautious approach (or simply don't do it) to soldering on the FBI or TMU chips, when using inadequate magnification. They are not very friendly or forgiving if you cannot see well.

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-12-06, 23:07:

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-06, 22:51:

Thanks! […]
Show full quote

sdz wrote on 2024-12-06, 17:45:

The attachment Screenshot_20241206_194336_Chrome.jpg is no longer available

Chech for loose TMU1 pins, broken traces and/or broken series resistors. I hope this helps.

Thanks!

I'll give it a go with the magnification of the soldering 'helping hand' that I have. If this isn't enough I'll have to invest in a USB microscope (amazon, et al) for a better magnification.
Keep you posted!

If I could offer a word of advice, it's to take a very cautious approach (or simply don't do it) to soldering on the FBI or TMU chips, when using inadequate magnification. They are not very friendly or forgiving if you cannot see well.

Thanks for the advice Shreddoc.

First step is purely a visual check to assess if the standard tool is enough. When doubtful, I'll have a scour of Amazon etc.
Do you, by any chance, have a recommendation for an USB microscope?

Hi!
It may seem funny, but for the convenience of repairs I mark the main groups of connections on spreadsheets, square cells 1.2 cm

Postman5 wrote on 2024-12-07, 11:05:

Hi!
It may seem funny, but for the convenience of repairs I mark the main groups of connections on spreadsheets, square cells 1.2 cm

Thanks Postman5, handy!

And Shreddoc was right, the 'handy tool' at 5x magnification is way too little to be useful.
I tried my phone's cam and zoom, from the looks of it there are some corroded solder joints left and right. Hard to say if these are the problem.
Guess I'll be sending some money towards a USB microscope 😁

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-07, 11:43:

Guess I'll be sending some money towards a USB microscope 😁

А cheap USB microscope will probably disappoint. A good binocular microscope will give you pleasure, but it is much more expensive

Postman5 wrote on 2024-12-07, 12:18:

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-07, 11:43:

Guess I'll be sending some money towards a USB microscope 😁

А cheap USB microscope will probably disappoint. A good binocular microscope will give you pleasure, but it is much more expensive

True, I dabble in the lab for a living. Decent (Leica/Leitz) second hand upright/ inverted microscopes start at 1500 euro~2000 depending on the objectives installed.
When we outfitted our cell culture lab 4 years ago, we bought a DM2500 phase contrast, CCD camera and objectives covering the range from 50x to 1000x, set us back 8500 euro. Nothing fancy, just a work horse.
A 'no-name' stereo microscope for prep work with 10x eye pieces and 0.7~4.5 range (7x to 45x) starts at around 400~500 euro, quite the investment.

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-07, 11:03:

Thanks for the advice Shreddoc. […]
Show full quote

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-12-06, 23:07:

Pantagruel wrote on 2024-12-06, 22:51:

Thanks!

I'll give it a go with the magnification of the soldering 'helping hand' that I have. If this isn't enough I'll have to invest in a USB microscope (amazon, et al) for a better magnification.
Keep you posted!

If I could offer a word of advice, it's to take a very cautious approach (or simply don't do it) to soldering on the FBI or TMU chips, when using inadequate magnification. They are not very friendly or forgiving if you cannot see well.

Thanks for the advice Shreddoc.

First step is purely a visual check to assess if the standard tool is enough. When doubtful, I'll have a scour of Amazon etc.
Do you, by any chance, have a recommendation for an USB microscope?

I can't recommend any specific model, my only experience of those types is from hearing the general experiences of others. I suspect most will be of similar standard, so your main caveat will be to avoid overt duds, which hopefully a body of reviews will indicate. For example, I have this one among my bookmarks, not for any special reason, but because it seems like a standard cheap+OK one (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005679873958.html).

Users of such USB scopes correctly point out that there are limitations. Limited zoom/FOV control. Average everything. Upgradeable nothing. Potentially there is minor visual latency, which tbh was the main decider against getting such a device, for me personally.

Having said all that, they are still worlds ahead of using a magnifying glass, jewellers loupe, phone camera, etc. They will handle all this level of work, and be a real luxury compared to having no scope at all.

Adjacent options include arm-mounted cameras which output to your PC screen, or low-end trinoculars. I use one of the generic, blue "RF4" trinos that can be seen on Ali. Having made my own stand, to save money, the total cost came to about 3x what a USB scope would've been.