Please help repairing my Voodoo 2 \ VOGONS

Please help repairing my Voodoo 2

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First post, by srhouyu

Posted on 2024-09-30, 01:08

srhouyu Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 6
Joined: 2023-06-20, 07:29

I have a Creative Voodoo 2 12M. Its VGA passthrough is OK, but it does not function. When Windows starts, it displays an error message indicating that glide2x.dll cannot find my Voodoo 2.

This card was originally working fine, but immediately after I applied several heatsinks, it started exhibiting these symptoms. Initially, the fault occurred with a 50% probability during system startup, but after a day or two, it gradually evolved into a 100% failure rate.

I suspect that applying the heatsinks may have caused some physical damage. I inspected the chip pins and did not find any obvious defects. I also did not find any noticeable physical damage to other parts.

I attempted to perform diagnostics on a Pentium MMX system running pure DOS. I added the following entries to autoexec.bat:

1set SST_INITDEBUG=1
2set SSTV2_INITDEBUG=1
3set SST_INITDEBUG_FILE=c:\sst.log
4set SSTV2_INITDEBUG_FILE=c:\sstv2.log
5set SST_DEBUGDAC=1
6set SSTV2_DEBUGDAC=1

After booting DOS, I ran

1mojo > mojo.log

and obtained mojo.log and sst.log, but did not see sstv2.log.

The contents of mojo.log are as follows:

1DPMI: In DpmiHookFxMemmap, addr=e4000000, size=01000000
2DPMI: Loading fxmemmap.vxd
3DPMI: mapping e4000000 size 01000000
4VoodooMEssage:  pSST: 0x0 data0: 0x0 data1: 0xe4000001 fn: 0x1000000
5DPMI: VoodooMessage: NULL ptr
6Finally: 00000000
7Info for Voodoo board # 0:
8=====================================================
9Virtual Base Address:                       0xe4000000
10Physical Base Address:                      0xe4000008
11PCI Device Number:                          0x9
12Vendor ID:                                  0x121a
13Device ID:                                  0x2
14FBI Revision:                               2
15FBI Memory:                                 4 MB
16FBI PowerOn Sense:                          0x2
17TMU PowerOn Sense:                          0x8d1
18FBI DAC Output Color Format:                24BPP
19Scan-Line Interleaved?                      No
20TMU Revision:                               1
21Number TMUs:                                1
22TMU 0 RAM:                                  0 MB
23DpmiUnmapMemory
24DpmiUnmapMemory

The contents of sst.log are as follows:

1sst1Init Routines: InitCode $Revision: 8 $
2sst1InitMapBoard(): BoardsInSystem = 1
3sst1InitMapBoard(): vAddr:0xe4000000 pAddr:0xe4000008 Dev:0x9 Board:0
4sst1InitRegisters(): Setting TREX-to-FBI FIFO THRESHOLD to 0x8...
5sst1InitRegisters(): Setting PRELIM FT-CLK delay to 0x8...
6sst1InitDacDetect(): Entered...
7sst1InitDacDetectICS(): Entered...
8dacWr(0x7,0xb)
9dacRd(0x5,0x79)
10dacRd(0x5,0x2e)
11dacWr(0x7,0x1)
12dacRd(0x5,0x55)
13dacRd(0x5,0x49)
14dacWr(0x7,0x7)
15dacRd(0x5,0x71)
16dacRd(0x5,0x29)
17sst1InitDacDetectICS(): Exiting...
18sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX0INIT0=0x5441
19sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX0INIT1=0xf420
20sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX1INIT0=0x5441
21sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX1INIT1=0xf420
22sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX2INIT0=0x5441
23sst1InitRegisters(): Storing TREX2INIT1=0xf420
24sst1InitSetGrxClk(): Entered...
25dacWr(0x7,0xe)
26dacRd(0x5,0x0)
27dacWr(0x4,0xa)
28dacWr(0x5,0x7b)
29dacWr(0x5,0x6c)
30dacWr(0x4,0xe)
31dacWr(0x5,0x0)
32sst1InitSetGrxClk(): Resetting TMUs after clock change...
33sst1InitRegisters(): Setting up FAST DRAM Configuration
34sst1InitGetTmuMemory() ERROR: Could not detect memory size.
35sst1InitFillDeviceInfo(): Retry #1 for chip GetInfo()...
36sst1InitGetTmuMemory() ERROR: Could not detect memory size.
37sst1InitFillDeviceInfo(): Retry #2 for chip GetInfo()...
38sst1InitGetTmuMemory() ERROR: Could not detect memory size.
39sst1InitFillDeviceInfo(): Retry #3 for chip GetInfo()...
40sst1InitGetTmuMemory() ERROR: Could not detect memory size.
41sst1InitFillDeviceInfo(): Retry #4 for chip GetInfo()...
42sst1InitGetTmuMemory() ERROR: Could not detect memory size.
43sst1InitRegisters(): ERROR filling DeviceInfo...
44sst1InitShutdown(): Shutting down SST-1 #0...
45sst1InitSetGrxClk(): Entered...
46dacWr(0x7,0xe)
47dacRd(0x5,0x0)
48dacWr(0x4,0xa)
49dacWr(0x5,0x41)
50dacWr(0x5,0x62)
51dacWr(0x4,0xe)
52dacWr(0x5,0x0)
53sst1InitShutdown(): Returning with status 1...

It appears to be an issue related to the TMU or VRAM, but I'm not sure whether the fault is from the TMU, the VRAM, or possibly both.

Additionally, is it possible to determine which specific TMU or VRAM on the card is affected?

Reply 1 of 2, by MikeSG

Posted on 2024-09-30, 13:33

MikeSG Offline

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Rank: Member
Posts: 429
Joined: 2023-02-14, 08:31

When it worked 50% of the time, did it work without problems, or was it showing visual defects?

Reply 2 of 2, by Thermalwrong

Posted on 2024-09-30, 16:33

Thermalwrong Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1827
Joined: 2018-03-18, 19:24
Location: England

It's only seeing one TMU right now and that's showing no memory or not responding properly.

Try running a game with "set SSTV2_TEXMAP_DISABLE=1" added to the autoexec to see if the game works without textures. GLquake and Quake II are good because they jump straight into playing the demo and you can still make out quite a lot with just the geometry.

Most likely in my opinion what's happened is the card got flexed or the QFPs were pushed/pulled during the heatsink installation and you have some loose pins on the FBI or TMU chips now. Since the 1st TMU (which is the one on the right, not the one by the SLI connector) isn't communicating it's likely the interface pins between that and the FBI are loose. The pinout for the TMU can be seen here since the TMU pinout the same as the Voodoo 1: 3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread
Pins in the 1 to 52 area are the TF_DATA (TMU to FBI) and FT_DATA (FBI to TMU) lines so they'd be the first place I'd check.

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