Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some advice on troubleshooting and possibly repairing an ALiCAT III PCI card. I’ve been searching for an ALi M3307 MPEG decoder for a long time because of nostalgia reasons, and I finally managed to find this card. The ALiCAT III is a rather interesting PCI VGA card with the ALi M3307 MPEG decoder built in, which made it a very exciting find for me. Unfortunately, the condition of the card is pretty rough.

Current condition:
- The PCB solder mask is peeling off in several areas
- On the underside of the PCB, several legs of what looks like the BIOS ROM IC seemed to be touching each other (possibly bridged). I have already carefully separated them.

Symptoms:
-Installed as the only VGA card:
No display output at all
System appears to continue booting, but absolutely no video signal
- Installed as secondary (“slave”) VGA with an S3 ViRGE as primary:
The system detects only the MPEG decoder portion
The VGA part of the ALiCAT III does not appear to be detected

So it seems like the ALi M3307 decoder is still partially alive, but the VGA side (M3147) may not be initializing or responding on the PCI bus.

Things I’m wondering
What would be the best troubleshooting steps from here?

I’ve attached a photo of the card for reference.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. I’d really love to save this card because I’ve been hunting one for years purely for nostalgia.
Thanks!