Just noticed the rear of the board, the chip below Q806 (top right hand of the board) is broken. On the front of the board, L800 is also damaged. Anyone have schematics of the board or know what the chips are?

The three caps near L800 on the front of the board look blown as well. C340, C360, C324.

All of those large square black caps are tantalums and internally short when worn. So repairing would include finding which is shorted if that's the case, or replacing them all.

Plus there is the suspicious scratch near the big white sticker on the back side. Definitely measure continuity there.

By the way, this card shouldn't be identified as TNT2 Ultra. It has a NV15 chip, so it should be more like Geforce 2 Ultra. Be sure to pick correct BIOS.

besides C340, C360 and C324, F200 also looks missing.

I have one of those exact cards, LMK if you need any information from it or closeup photos.

MikeSG wrote on 2024-10-09, 08:38:

The three caps near L800 on the front of the board look blown as well. C340, C360, C324.

All of those large square black caps are tantalums and internally short when worn. So repairing would include finding which is shorted if that's the case, or replacing them all.

Thanks for that. I hadn’t seen those yet. Going to investigate those tantalum’s.

Paar wrote on 2024-10-09, 12:21:

Plus there is the suspicious scratch near the big white sticker on the back side. Definitely measure continuity there.

By the way, this card shouldn't be identified as TNT2 Ultra. It has a NV15 chip, so it should be more like Geforce 2 Ultra. Be sure to pick correct BIOS.

Yeah that scratch does look sus. I’ll check it out. You are 100% correct. It’s a GF2 Ultra. I’ve updated the post.

nuno14272 wrote on 2024-10-09, 15:07:

besides C340, C360 and C324, F200 also looks missing.

Will check that out. Thanks!

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-09, 15:58:

I have one of those exact cards, LMK if you need any information from it or closeup photos.

I would be very grateful if you could do a high quality picture of the front/back of the card. That would help a lot. If you could be bothered, I’d really appreciate a dump of the BIOS to compare. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/uploads/3/7/ … /nvflash513.zip

I think it’s something like

1nvflash.exe -b backup.rom

The 2 caps under Q806 and Q807 are identical, if your mutlimeter can measure caps, desolder c923 and measure it.
C340, C360 and C324 are usually 100nf caps around the memory chips.

high quality photos: https://vgamuseum.ru/gpu/nvidia/nvidia-quadro-2-pro/

I can't do better than those photos, so I won't bother with that. But here's the BIOS.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-09, 22:23:

I can't do better than those photos, so I won't bother with that. But here's the BIOS.

Awesome thanks for that. I compared the BIOS's and they are identical so at least now I know there is no bit rot. It must be the physical damage causing the issue.

Managed to spend some more time on this card. I started installing missing components using a Geforce 2 MX400 donor card. After the first couple of replacements, the white screen changed to the following screen.

After installing the final missing component on the rear of the card near Q806 (1 ohm capacitor) the card came alive! WoooHooo!

I then performed the resistor mod to make it identify as a Geforce 2 Ultra. R122 -> R121

Has anyone got a Geforce 2 Ultra BIOS they would recommend? I could just set the clock settings to the Ultra specs in Windows but would prefer them to be set in the BIOS.

Maybe one of these http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/nvbios.htm#GF2 ?

I'm not sure how the bios work for the DVI connector but you could try this Re: Geforce2 Ultra

Grem Five wrote on 2025-01-05, 03:04:

I'm not sure how the bios work for the DVI connector but you could try this Re: Geforce2 Ultra

Thanks for that. I came across that too in my travels but wanted sort of a Nvidia reference BIOS and not a branded one.

Ok figured it out. Keep in mind you lose the ability of using the DVI port (none of the Ultra's had this port) but this is well documented elsewhere.

Use VGABIOS to test the ROM file http://www.x86-secret.com/Download/bios/Vgabios.exe on the machine.

If it works then flash with NVFLASH (I used v5.13). I used the GeForce² Ultra 3.15.01.02.00 BIOS (g2ulbt.rom) http://www.x86-secret.com/Download/bios/GF2U_ … 15.01.02.00.zip .

1Vgabios.exe -fg2ulbt.rom
2nvflash -5 -6 g2ulbt.rom

On a P3 1000, 3dMark99 went from 6161 to 7001. Nice little upgrade.

The hardware and software on this card is now identical to an Ultra. Sweet!

zuldan wrote on 2025-01-05, 04:31:

Ok figured it out. Keep in mind you lose the ability of using the DVI port (none of the Ultra's had this port) but this is well documented elsewhere.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/601/5
http://www.tweak3d.net/reviews/hercules/3dprophet2ultra/
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/gf2uleadtekwinfast/index.html
https://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/R … _geforce2ultra/
and then the one I have:
http://pcang.com/sparkle_sp6900_gf2_ultra.htm
Although the sparkle one I have has the dvi port it for some strange reason doesnt have the SiI164 or SiI154 chip and all the small smds that go with it. Same as the one pictured in the link above.

I'm not suprised you got an uplift as the Nvidia Quadros normally have the better speed memory put on them, I bet if you took the heatsinks off they would have the 4ns memory modules on them. The Nvidia Quadro 2 Pro should be on par memory clocks as the Geforce2 Ti but probably has the memory chips comparable to the ultras as Phil has shown in his vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku9Cp3o13QI

Grem Five wrote on 2025-01-05, 06:20:

Although the sparkle one I have has the dvi port it for some strange reason doesnt have the SiI164 or SiI154 chip and all the small smds that go with it. Same as the one pictured in the link above.

Interesting. So there are some Ultra's with DVI ports. I need to find a BIOS with the DVI.

Grem Five wrote on 2025-01-05, 06:20:

I'm not suprised you got an uplift as the Nvidia Quadros normally have the better speed memory put on them, I bet if you took the heatsinks off they would have the 4ns memory modules on them. The Nvidia Quadro 2 Pro should be on par memory clocks as the Geforce2 Ti but probably has the memory chips comparable to the ultras as Phil has shown in his vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku9Cp3o13QI

Yep, I believe Nvidia Quadros have the same clock speed as the Ti's but has the Ultra hardware. So flashing a Quadros BIOS to a Ultras BIOS changes the default clock speed from 400Mhz to 460Mhz.

Been doing some stress testing on the card. It's rock solid stable. With the amount of damage I was convinced there were going to be issues.