Troubleshooting help plan for the 3dfx Voodoo 2 series cards
Before you start a first repair attempt, take a close look at the pins of the three 3dfx chips. Many have several bent legs that were shorting out. If you find this, first straighten out all bent legs. Many in the free second-hand trade come from people who have pulled them from the scrap somewhere and sell them as untested under the pretext of so many imaginative excuses.
Furthermore, it is very helpful, before starting to replace components, to first check all pins of the three 3dfx chips for their soldered connections to the PCB. Due to the age, contact resistances can be present here. Further troubleshooting is only useful when all chips are well soldered.
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No Detection as a Multimedia Device in Bios Post
Possible causes
- Chuck
- Check for pins, may shorting out
- PCI Interruptions
- Short in a memory circuit
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Solution
- Replace Chuck
- Carefully straighten out the pins
- Fix the interruptions
- Replace faulty memories
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_GlideInit Environment: Glide2x.dll expected Voodoo^2, none detected
Possible causes
- Chuck has bad contacts
- Chuck itself defect
- GENDAC draws off chuck
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Solution
- Correct the contacts and joints
- Replace chuck
- Replace GENDAC
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In Glide Mode, spikes and dropouts flash scattered around. They look like fragments of black squares and triangles. Partly with image content
Possible causes
- Chuck gradually overheats
- Chuck is damaged
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Solution
- For initial evaluation, please allow chuck carefully to cool down, using freezing spray while running. If the fault disappears it is a internal, thermal defect or just pure overheating, that causes the malfunctions.
- In most cases Chuck overheats due to internal faults
- Replace Chuck and framebuffer memories
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Loopthrough graphics ok but no picture in Glide Mode
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Low Texture Quality
 
Possible causes
- This may happen if texture mapping fails. Using 3dfx detection sofwtare for initial evaluation if TMU1 or RMU2 is missing memory.
- If this fault occurs now and then…:
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Solution
- some of the texture memorys may have a fault and should be replaced the related ones. Please replace always in blocks of 4 chips.
- Figure out using freezing spray which memory fails.
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Texturs are completely messed up
Possible causes
- TMU’s out of sync.
- Texture memory adress out of range
- 5V too low
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Solution
- Im most cases TMU pins having bad joints
- may be a memory chip failure
- check if the operation voltage from PCI is 5Vdc +- 0,2Vdc
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Series of dots in the texture
Possible causes
- Typical Voodoo 2 fault. Often caused by one open pin of a TMU.
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Solution
- Please do a reflow of TMU pins.
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Spikes and Dropouts like horizontal rain all over the screen
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Solution
- Remove both, FB1 and 2 and check for continuity. It happens that they are about to fall apart. Micro cracks cause this problem. If so, replace them.
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3dfx Troubleshooting Guide
