Voodoo 5 repair

[opualuan]

I’ve have a recapped Mac edition Voodoo5 and have vga working great. DVI output is just a pattern of colors, no desktop image drawn.

I’ve seen references to DVI being problematic for these cards, but does the pattern point to any particular failure point? Nothing looks damaged or loose. Reflow of DVI-related components is possible but I’d like to target the search for the issue if I can.

Appreciate any guidance!

 

[Byrd]

Have a look at repair threads on Vogons and see if there are any components damaged or knocked off around this area. Does the image change when the DVI cable is moved?

 

[opualuan]

No change with wiggling. Looked under a microscope and didn’t see anything obvious. I’ve seen this type of noise on a different voodoo 5 in the past, hopeful someone has seen it.

 

[Raptor007]

I suspect that's a firmware bug, not hardware. One of the later driver releases included a BIOS upgrade for the card which fixed some things, but broke DVI output at 1920x1200 and probably other resolutions. Since then I've just run my Voodoo5 on VGA.

No idea if the firmware can be rolled back to an earlier version or where you'd find it, but this is where I'd start digging:

Accelerate Your Mac's new Home for 3DFX News and Reviews!

Accelerate Your Mac's 3Dfx News, Reviews, Tips and Tricks Site!

web.archive.org

Edit: Yeah I see DVI problems with alternating black and white lines mentioned on the 1.1.3b driver feedback page:

Accelerate Your Macintosh! News Story - Feedback on 3dfx Driver voodoo4/voodoo5 v1.1.3 beta (incl. Download Location):

reader comments on 3dfx 1.1.3 beta mac voodoo 4/voodoo5 drivers

web.archive.org

Sounds like the solution might be to install the old 1.1.2 driver, then hold F while opening the 3DFx MacTools control panel to install the firmware included with that driver. (I haven't tried this myself.)

 

[opualuan]

Thanks for the tips. After recapping didn’t help, investigated display compatibility. According to reviewer docs 3dfx published this card was only designed to hook up to Apple Studio/Cinema and an SGI display.

The card will only output the max resolution the display can do, then scales the image output to that resolution. It appears the card gets confused with unknown display EDID and will display an odd narrow resolution that causes artifacts.

After building an EDID and testing with EDID injector on two different displays, now outputs 1600x1024 (macos scaling to lower resolutions works), artifacts went away- now DVI is working 100%.