So, I'm messing around with this particular board Re: Voodoo 2 component map and get a 0xdead error on TMUs, and "a bogus number of TMUs (57005) in mojo.exe. clearly indicating no response. The TMU furthest away from the VGA connectors is cold as ice (or at least room temp) the other one is luke warm, so I honestly suspect the cold one not being powered at all. Probably next step will be looking for supply traces and maybe filter components in its path?

Have you inspected the card in detail using a microscope or at least a magnifying glass to see if there are any missing components or any damaged traces? That is definitely the first step.

Can you post some quality pics of the front and rear of the board?

If one TMU is powered, so is the other one. Both directly tap into the power plane.
The TMU receives a clock from the RAMDAC and one from the FBI, check those areas for damage or missing/broken components.

byte_76 wrote on 2025-01-01, 18:43:

Have you inspected the card in detail using a microscope or at least a magnifying glass to see if there are any missing components or any damaged traces? That is definitely the first step.

Can you post some quality pics of the front and rear of the board?

Yes, been spending some hours under the scope, there's no evident signs of anything, unfortunately other than was in the post I linked to.

sdz wrote on 2025-01-01, 20:32:

If one TMU is powered, so is the other one. Both directly tap into the power plane.
The TMU receives a clock from the RAMDAC and one from the FBI, check those areas for damage or missing/broken components.

Thanks, will look into that with the pinouts in hand 🙂

Are there any schematics of sorts in the community?

There are now:
https://sdz-mods.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/ … SX_PCIE_A01.pdf

It's the schematic of this:

Not the regular V2 schematic, but you can see how the FBI and TMUs are connected, what clocks are needed etc. Ignore the extra TMU.

Regarding your card, check for loose TMU or FBI pins, this is a very common fault. If you have a scope, try scoping the clocks that are supposed to be fed into the cold TMU. Also check the reset signal of that TMU and compare it to the presumably working one.

Nice one.
Board looks so clean without the million filtering caps. No issues there?

There are hundreds of them on the other side of the PCB.

Only 1 pcie lane.
I'm surprised you left the plated edge fingers on the rest of it.

It's crazy to think that moving to a serial network protocol made things so much faster so quickly.
Those 4 tiny traces are faster than the 32 wire pci bus.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-01-01, 17:49:

"a bogus number of TMUs (57005)

Also often there is a failure of one element in resistor arrays of 10 or 22 or 33 or 47 Ohm. This is very easy to check, you need to start with the FBI<-->TMU0 connections.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-01-01, 17:49:

So, I'm messing around with this particular board Re: Voodoo 2 component map and get a 0xdead error on TMUs, and "a bogus number of TMUs (57005) in mojo.exe. clearly indicating no response. The TMU furthest away from the VGA connectors is cold as ice (or at least room temp) the other one is luke warm, so I honestly suspect the cold one not being powered at all. Probably next step will be looking for supply traces and maybe filter components in its path?

Check the ferrite beads. Personal experience bias, of course, but I fixed mine with a new ferrite after verifying it worked with a solder blob bodge.

Postman5 wrote on 2025-01-02, 05:29:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-01-01, 17:49:

"a bogus number of TMUs (57005)

Also often there is a failure of one element in resistor arrays of 10 or 22 or 33 or 47 Ohm. This is very easy to check, you need to start with the FBI<-->TMU0 connections.

Yeah, I saw that too in Bits und Bolts' YouTube video, but I can't see any obvious ones being damaged. But I will dig deeper into the FBI <--> TMU0 connections then. I may even have to actually measure 🤣

myne wrote on 2025-01-02, 05:40:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-01-01, 17:49:

So, I'm messing around with this particular board Re: Voodoo 2 component map and get a 0xdead error on TMUs, and "a bogus number of TMUs (57005) in mojo.exe. clearly indicating no response. The TMU furthest away from the VGA connectors is cold as ice (or at least room temp) the other one is luke warm, so I honestly suspect the cold one not being powered at all. Probably next step will be looking for supply traces and maybe filter components in its path?

Check the ferrite beads. Personal experience bias, of course, but I fixed mine with a new ferrite after verifying it worked with a solder blob bodge.

Exactly ferrite beads was what I was thinking of. 🙂

Update on the board. Inspired by Bits Und Bolt's videos, I reflowed the TMUs. As of now, everything looks better. Haven't got an image on screen yet, but MOJO's output is getting me optimistic.

I may have fogged up drivers on my W98SE install in switching between a Voodoo and the Voodoo 2, gonna try a reinstall from scratch including drivers - a day when I have a couple of hours.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-01-08, 07:01:

Update on the board. Inspired by Bits Und Bolt's videos, I reflowed the TMUs. As of now, everything looks better. Haven't got an image on screen yet, but MOJO's output is getting me optimistic.

I may have fogged up drivers on my W98SE install in switching between a Voodoo and the Voodoo 2, gonna try a reinstall from scratch including drivers - a day when I have a couple of hours.

What do you get on screen now when you start a game? I guess it starts up okay?

I ask because that TMU & FBI dead / 0mb result before in mojo reminds me a great deal of my experience with mojo and a 3dfx voodoo 1 card that had taken a serious impact around the RAMDAC area: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Specifically that mojo will give that failed result and show no useful indicator of what happened, but the log output gives a clear indication:

1sst1Init Routines: InitCode $Revision: 8 $
2sst1InitMapBoard(): BoardsInSystem = 1
3sst1InitMapBoard(): vAddr:0xc8dc0000 pAddr:0xdd000008 Dev:0x9 Board:0
4sst1InitRegisters(): Setting TREX-to-FBI FIFO THRESHOLD to 0x8...
5sst1InitRegisters(): Setting PRELIM FT-CLK delay to 0x8...
6sst1InitRegisters(): Could not detect DAC...

The reflow has probably fixed the digital connection to the RAMDAC and that means the power to it also works but there could still be more faults on the analog side of it.

If the impact that your card took wasnt too bad, perhaps reflowing the RAMDAC with hot air and flux will resolve the issue entirely 😀

Doesn't start work games yet, have messed up my windows installation. Will do a reinstall soon 😀

Anyone have the values for the Ferrite beads on the STB Voodoo 2s?

Specifically, L7 is missing on mine and the color red is no longer present in the video output. How important are the resistive ratings on ferrite beads? Apparently they are hard to measure if one is removed special equipment is needed to measure them. I'm thinking I might get the two values listed on the first page 70R and 600R and roll the dice.

Also, does anyone know the value of the ceramic caps at C589 and C544? These are on the back of the STB.

Thanks

I used these on a V2
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/TE-Conne … 7zvHnbesA%3D%3D

I don't think it matters all that much - it worked fine with a solder blob before I replaced them.

As for functionality, it doesn't matter much, as the ferrite beads are close to being short circuit at DC and lower frequencies. Their value is typically rated at 100MHz, where it matters in terms of electromagnetic noise emissions. So, in theory one might disturb other electronic appliances, but practically speaking, it's probably neglibe ..