Could a one-time error in U5 (and no further errors have been seen in Witchery tests) indicate that this memory module is truly broken?
Voodoo 2 produces an image in games similar to that in this post: Re: Voodoo2 diagnostics software (Witchery)

vorobaz wrote on 2026-03-16, 07:30:

Could a one-time error in U5

Well I don't see a "one-time" error, I see 137680 errors in U5!
Witchery hides verbose output by default but you can launch it with "-v" key and see full log with all the errors.

Data mask suggests that there's a problem with one particular bit - bit 5 of U5.
If previous (RAM connection) test runs fine then probably U5 itself is bad.
Or maybe there's a flaky connection on bit 5 that has to be checked/resoldered.

Fagear wrote on 2026-03-16, 17:04:

...Or maybe there's a flaky connection on bit 5 that has to be checked/resoldered.

Thanks, I'll try soldering U5 first - it doesn't look like any pins have come loose from the board.

oh well, if I still had my Miro Hiscore2 card...

Awesome tool!

Huge thanx for this.

Hi!
I have un Maxi Gamer 3D² with problems.
Textures are not good, contant points inside.

I already reflow FBI TMU0 and TMU1, add missing C95, changing C44 (constant resistance when I heat it, see BuB video for piero electric effect), no effect.

I tested witchery, no error detected

Do you have any idea what is the problem of this card and how to fix it ?
It could be a defective EDO RAM but i don't know how to find which EDO chip is broken.

Can you help me ?

SylvainA wrote on 2026-03-29, 22:34:

Do you have any idea what is the problem of this card and how to fix it ?
It could be a defective EDO RAM but i don't know how to find which EDO chip is broken.

Well, problem is definitely with TMU's RAM. And Witchery can not help with that yet.
Look for bad resistor networks around both TMUs. Even if those look ok, check each of 4 resistors inside with a multimeter, resistance should fall within 10% of what written on the network. "220" means 22 x 10^0 = 22 Ohms. So 19.8...24.2 Ohms is ok, if out of range - replace the whole resistor network. I've fixed one V2 just some days ago with silimar texture issues, replaced 6 (six) networks around TMUs.

Hi.
Thanks for your quick answer and congrats for your super job, witchery is an amazing tool !
I tested all that "blue 22R" resistor networks around both TMUs, and all values are within 22.6-22.9 Ohms range.
So they seems to be in good condition.

What could be the next step now ? I don't know how to process.
Please note the card is a 12MB one.

Oh I've been waiting for this since first seeing it on BuB, I have a couple of faulty V2's and one which has done my nut in trying to fix, it had ALOT of loose & bent pins on a TMU and the FBI, I ended up removing the FBI and straightening all the pins before resoldering, sorted the TMU pins, replaced a couple of missing/broken caps but the card has never worked, it was detected in windows in the drivers, all the ram in place etc, it just black screened when trying to launch anything, same in Mojo, no faults, so I was at a bit of a loss, I even swapped the Ramdac off another broken one just out of desperation.
Nothing worked, I assumed it was ram so I bought a reel off aliexpress a while back but didn't want to just go changing them all without knowing, I saw Witchery on BuB and waited patiently.
My day finally came, you absolute legend releasing to the community, it really is an amazing community isn't it?
Anyway, my faulty Voodoo 2
Witchery result
There's af ault on the Ram "FBI Ram IC U21"

Replaced U21

Passed Witchery Tests (lost my f**n mind)

Booted Windows
Launch 3dmark

Boom !!
Works perfect
Fainted
Honestly, cannot thank you enough, it's an epic program that seemingly will only get better, it worked perfect for me, thank you thank you thank you !!!!
LEGEND !!

Hi !
Nice repair good job mate !

I had an idea concerning the point of testing SOJ-40 EDO RAM.
I have an ATI MACH64 VT PCI card with 1MB of VRAM + 2x SOJ-40 empty slots.

ATI provided this tool (Source) :

64UTLxxx.ZIP/EXE (DOS) - ATI mach64 vx.xx Utilities Installation & Configuration - contains a video memory test, among other thi […]
Show full quote

64UTLxxx.ZIP/EXE (DOS) - ATI mach64 vx.xx Utilities Installation & Configuration - contains a video memory test, among other things, for ATI mach64.
http://web.archive.org/web/199704041037 ... utl222.zip
http://web.archive.org/web/199704041037 ... utl222.txt
http://web.archive.org/web/199707060626 ... utl303.exe
http://web.archive.org/web/199707060627 ... utl303.txt

This combo card+tool could be useful for testing VRAM chip of our Voodoo cards ?
What do you think about it ?

SylvainA wrote on 2026-04-01, 21:59:

Hi ! Nice repair good job mate ! […]
Show full quote

Hi !
Nice repair good job mate !

I had an idea concerning the point of testing SOJ-40 EDO RAM.
I have an ATI MACH64 VT PCI card with 1MB of VRAM + 2x SOJ-40 empty slots.

The attachment 20260401_231919.jpg is no longer available

ATI provided this tool (Source) :

64UTLxxx.ZIP/EXE (DOS) - ATI mach64 vx.xx Utilities Installation & Configuration - contains a video memory test, among other thi […]
Show full quote

64UTLxxx.ZIP/EXE (DOS) - ATI mach64 vx.xx Utilities Installation & Configuration - contains a video memory test, among other things, for ATI mach64.
http://web.archive.org/web/199704041037 ... utl222.zip
http://web.archive.org/web/199704041037 ... utl222.txt
http://web.archive.org/web/199707060626 ... utl303.exe
http://web.archive.org/web/199707060627 ... utl303.txt

This combo card+tool could be useful for testing VRAM chip of our Voodoo cards ?
What do you think about it ?

I have been doing a similar thing, using other socketed cards and generic stress tests as a rough Good/Bad check. Your Ati card-tool combo is a good one. There are other RAM test programs out there too.

We (beta testers etc) have also put sockets directly onto the V2 cards, in some test cases. I don't recommend it, but it can be done.

What is your advice for ideal VRAM test program to choose ?

I also have this Diamond Steal 3D 2000 2MB for testing 4 by 4 chips.

Maybe can I use Check It 3.0 for DOS, this tool can check VRAM but I don't know if it can test chip by chip.
I suppose to we can not plug only one chip to test it solo ?

SylvainA wrote on 2026-04-01, 22:35:

What is your advice for ideal VRAM test program to choose ? […]
Show full quote

What is your advice for ideal VRAM test program to choose ?

I also have this Diamond Steal 3D 2000 2MB for testing 4 by 4 chips.

The attachment 20260330_175607.jpg is no longer available

Maybe can I use Check It 3.0 for DOS, this tool can check VRAM but I don't know if it can test chip by chip.
I suppose to we can not plug only one chip to test it solo ?

Afaik, the ideal test program in this context is Witchery itself (FBI RAM only, for now). That is why some people have soldered sockets onto their V2 card for this purpose. Even just one socket will allow you to swap in and test individual chips. I said I didn't recommend it, in general - simply because it is a little fiddly, the sockets aren't the most robust things in the world imo, and it involves altering a valuable card. But really, it is not difficult for techs, and is perhaps the leading option if you need to _repeatedly_ swap and test RAM for V2.

There are a range of PCI cards with suitable sockets (or to which they can be added), such as your ATI, but many such cards do not run their RAM at V2 speeds, so (without modification) any tests done with that subset will not be at V2 spec. Still, they can be quite useful for eliminating obvious dead ICs. For this purpose, quite often simply running a period benchmark or game on the card will be enough to tell if you have a dead IC, and from there you can use a process of elimination to narrow it down. Necroware's very-early-beta Video RAM memory tester could probably also be used with these PCI cards.

Ok I am agree with all that thoughts and ideas.
First,I think I gonna try testing all 16 TMU's RAM chips on ATI MACH64.
If ATI diag tool does not find any broken chip (because of too low testing speed), I 'll solder SOJ-40 socket on U21, then I could easily check any chip in V2 condition with Witchery.
To be 100% sure !

A good idea could be also to downgrade this V2 from 12MB to 10MB (removing U23 to U26) then to 8MB (removing U27 to U30), benching card and checking chips after each unsoldering.

Macca70 wrote on 2026-03-31, 14:00:

Boom !! Works perfect Fainted Honestly, cannot thank you enough, it's an epic program that seemingly will only get better, it […]
Show full quote

Boom !!
Works perfect
Fainted
Honestly, cannot thank you enough, it's an epic program that seemingly will only get better, it worked perfect for me, thank you thank you thank you !!!!
LEGEND !!

I'm glad that Witchery helped to save another Voodoo board!

Macca70 wrote on 2026-03-31, 14:00:

it was detected in windows in the drivers

To be fair, there's very little required for the Voodoo to be detected as PCI device/detected in Windows.
The board must have the FBI chip. And proper power to it (Q1 3.5V regulator). Nothing more. No TMUs, no RAM, not even RAMDAC is required to be on the board for it to be detected.
So "was detected in windows" is not a big deal and doesn't say much.

SylvainA wrote on 2026-04-01, 21:59:

This combo card+tool could be useful for testing VRAM chip of our Voodoo cards ?
What do you think about it ?

Probably?.. I didn't look into that software yet.
But as far as I know, PCI 2D boards don't run their RAM very fast. The timing markings on RAM chips are telling: -50, -60, -70. Voodoo2 has chips with timings -28, -25, -22. Basically, twice (or more) as fast.
Probably running tests on ATI Mach or S3 Trio could detect completely dead RAM but those can not test it on "proper" speed for V2. Also, I've seen boards with S3 Trio64UV with all 4 SOJ sockets.

On the other hand, V2 board can run RAM on whatever frequency from 50 to 130 MHz. Witchery allows to run tests on a chosen frequency. And Voodoo2 can test 8x RAM ICs at one go if SOJ sockets are soldered in.

SylvainA wrote on 2026-04-01, 22:35:

I also have this Diamond Steal 3D 2000 2MB for testing 4 by 4 chips.

Keep in mind that SOJ-40 RAM chips can be of at least three (3) different capacities.
Usual type is 512 KiB per chip (256K x16), used on most Voodoo boards and video cards. There are more dense 1 MiB (512K x16) chips that were used on rare V2s (single-sided 12 MiB boards).
But also there were 256 KiB (128K x16 or even 256K x8) chips used on older video cards.

Depending on how PCBs are traced direct swap could be not possible.

Thanks for your answer.
I think I gonna downgrade V2 from 12MB to 8MB (removing all TMU RAM on the back), then benchmark.
I don't know if the card is able to work with 10MB (removing TMU1 RAM only).

Then, I gonna unsolder U21 and solder soj socket instead.
And I'll test each memory chip on it with witchery to be sure to test all of them in v2 condition (85Mhz and more)

I use autocomplete—the command wi+"Tab" -c105—to check the memory chips.
The memory test always starts with checking U4.

Nice idea of U4 and nice bench rig 😀
For option command, you mean typing : witchery -c105
Or any other one ?

SylvainA wrote on Yesterday, 23:17:

Nice idea of U4 and nice bench rig 😀
For option command, you mean typing : witchery -c105
Or any other one ?

Yes, I use the -c50...-c120 options to test different memory chips.
The command looks like "witchery -c103", for example.
But you don't have to type the entire command; you can press "w" "i" "Tab", and autocompletion will kick in, displaying "witchery"

Is this able to be used on older linux distros from the early 2000's?