As someone who had to do rework in a job back when these cards weren't that old, you are getting better at this type of thing then we ever were. Although we would never bother fixing a package with broken off pins unless it was an engineering sample or something.
You have come a long way in your soldering skills! Very good, high quality work cleaning, reflowing, fixing solder joints and chips! Outstanding work! Well done! Hope you had as much fun working on it as we are having just watching you work!
If you are not aware, you can prevent the Windows 95/98 GUI from loading by adding "bootgui=0" to MSDOS.SYS (remove the Readonly file attribute to edit) then you don't have to fiddle with the F5/F8/shift key during boot.
Thank you! I'm really happy to hear that so many people enjoy watching restorations like this. It was a lot of work, but the outcome is very rewarding! Thanks for sharing the MSDOS.SYS entry. Usually, the F8 key works. Sometimes, it's just ignored - particularly on this P2B board. I have come across this entry before, but I forgot about it. Next time, I'll add it if I have issues again.
I have a trick for aligning QFP chips: touch the eraser end of a pencil to the PCB and then twist the pencil so the eraser rolls along like a tyre, when the eraser makes contact with the side of the chip it pushes it along slowly
Ah, nice! So, you slowly rotate the pencil over the board and move the chip slightly. You have full control because you probably press the pencil a bit to the PCB. Result: no sudden movements! Thanks for sharing!
The 3Dfx repair ASMR and the working card at the end of the video makes the kid in me smile from ear to ear. I guess the FBI chip is not all it was cracked up to be. Sorry, had to say it 👅
I have a feeling that Witchery is going to save a lot of Voodoo cards. You could take that die a cast it in clear epoxy as a nice decoration or paperweight. As usual great job on saving another piece of retro hardware!
The soldering and alignment of the pins of the new FPI chip look much better than the factory assembled ones. What dexterity and attention to detail, a work of art 😎
Yeah, I was really impressed. I soldered a CPLD in a similar pkg and while it works, it's obviously off center, so much so I had to bend a few pins at the corners.
It's good to see someone using aluminum tape to protect components. For the curious, if you use Kapton tape and blast it with hot air, it might start to shrink, with the glue pulling on smaller components and dislodging them if the solder underneath is also liquid. Aluminum doesn't shrink when heated, though.
Nice observation! And this is exactly why I upgraded. Kapton tape only works so much - and I think I got some yellow colored fake tape. It shrinks so quickly and doesn't help a lot. This aluminum tape is amazing - works exactly as it should!
I haven't had Chinese Koptan branded tape shrink, and Kapton should behave the same. I have had one tape shrink but it turned out to be fake, it was gold coloured PET tape instead of PI tape.
I think this is what I got - some PET tape that was sold as Kapton tape. I can still use it to fix some electronics to my workboard, but not as a heat shield.
@ Aluminum tape is also quite cheap. It's also what you should use instead of duct tape if you are working on actual ducts, especially since it has no problems with UV.
@ You can probably locally buy good tape from 3D printer shop, ELEGOO a major 3D printer manufacturer sells a kit of 4 different widths, should be good and high quality. The tapes that i got from random Chinese sellers which were good came with a leader which read _"K o p t a n"_ in italic green lettering. The fake tape had no leader or a nondecript leader. Biaxial PET tape is used for electronics work as well but it normally comes teal rather than gold tinted so as to not be confused with other tapes, it's not at all suitable for soldering. My oldest roll of Koptan is now about 10 years old and the glue has started degrading, i wager a guess real real Kapton should be better at this, but heat resistance is the same and excellent anyway. Anyway alu works really well and by all reason even better than Kapton for heat shielding, and another option is layering Kapton underneath alu to give it a bit of insulating action for extra super mega shielding.
thats crazy, I never played the game but that intro to Unreal is actually part of a 3d benchmark for older cards like these but I never knew it was for that game.
If you go to the car parts store, sometimes you can get sulfuric acid for batteries. If you put some in a glass container and heat it at 200 c for a while, you can concentrate the acid enough to dissolve the black plastic epoxy packaging around IC's to view the die without scraping or sanding. It will also dissolve the green solder mask on the boards too, so you need to be careful with that. Of course you should wear gloves and eye protection when handling harsh chemicals. It's also good to have baking soda nearby incase there are any spills.
I remember how your hands were shaking when you did that k6 mod 1-2 years ago. Your soldering skills have improved A LOT since then. I wish mine were at least close to yours)
Ahhh, yes... One of the earlier videos! Glad to see you are still here! Over the past years, I got a lot more confident working on old hardware. My hands no longer get sweaty when I try to remove a heat spreader or desolder a 3Dfx chip :)
Absolute wow!! This has to be the best tech, repair, delidding video I have ever seen, and as a bonus, a brilliant card is saved from landfill! Top marks my friend! Loved this video!
I had one of these back in the day. It was really something else to use, totally a revolutionary leap forward in graphic fidelity and framerate. Neat to see one of these again after all these years.
Witchery looks like an absolute god send for diagnosing 3DFX cards, thanks for sharing the look at the Die. Glad you had a good crack at repairing the card and got it crackling back into life once again, I had a cracking time watching this video thank you.
Agree! I think this card almost shares a place with the one that had 20 memory chips blown up by a bad power supply. Funnily, on that card, the FBI chip was also damaged. Nevertheless, this was a great project and I am happy that the card works again! Thanks for watching!
awesome efforts, going thru all that. amazing view of the cracks and die. looks like a scratched up hologram sticker. @23:01 so funny noise, like you ate an icky candy. props to witchery and its maker, most valuable. new card beat dylan no problem.
@@bitsundboltsi laughed when you brought out the sand paper, good luck with that. how much were the nos cks? i havnt broken/fixed my card with the bent pins on the ck yet
Thank you 😊. It took a while and I practiced a lot! I usually reflow all three chips of Voodoo 2 cards that come to my desk. It's just a matter of time before those solder connections break. By reflowing the chips, I reset the clock - for another 20-30 years! This made me get better at reflowing those chips. Thanks for watching 🙏
And to think that modern GPU's and CPU's are made using way way smaller sizes now, is just mind-blowing how humans were able to work at such scales with our huge tools.
Well done. When you brought out the sandpaper for the chip surface I guessed it would take you forever, glad you changed approach. Fixing the card is reward enough!
Yeah, I thought the sanding paper would work a lot better, but that wasn't the case. At least we still could see the die and the card worked in the end.
Great Job fixing this card. Nice upgrade in editing and the music works as well. BTW I think the drill down of the chip should have been a separate video which was very interesting to watch nonetheless.
Yes, it is very interesting, but also very repetitive. There's not much happening for a long time digging into the plastic. Then, the golden bind wires appear. Then you're close to the silicon chip. I might make another video doing this, but using a better method to preserve the die.
Been watching your channel for awhile. You made your own Simm memory modules and now repair Voodoo2 cards. This one was the worst condition cards and you restored it to working condition. I'd say your certified on doing these for collectors if they have a faulty card since you know the in's and outs on them and have a good success rate.
Thank you! Yes, this card was in pretty bad shape. Your comment almost sounds like I'll be working on some Quantum3D equipment in the future 😀. Let's see! Thanks for watching!
Thank you! I'm using AmTech NC-559-ASM. I got mine from AliExpress. There's a link to the store in my website under affiliate links if you're interested.
Wow, and I thought I was the only one from PL watching this :D That moment with kopalnioki was unexpected, really got me! Hope you like them, not everybody likes them they are quite unique.
I really enjoyed Kopalnioki - they are great! Yes, there are quite a few people from Poland watching: 4.1% of viewers to be precise (fourth largest group after US, Germany, and UK)!
Wow, I was kinda rooting for the original 3D Accelerator that could, to be fixed, and you did it! Awesome job! It's nice to know that these retro cards can be saved, and brought back into service. Such a repair on this card must be some kind of Wizardry, or Sorcery....or.... ;)
A big smile, there could have not been a better ending, in both ways as the dead chip still had something to give to all 3dfx fans with the awesome logo. Cheers! IT LIVES, IT LIVES HAHAHA Btw, i have an 8mb to crossfire one of these days with a 12mb one, just gathering some experience (and courage) watching you to upgrade it to 12mb (already got the extra 100mhz vram chips).
Thank you! I'm very happy with the results and the video, too! I am sure you'll be able to upgrade your Voodoo 2. You need a nice soldering tip and a bit of flux would help too. Gathering experience is always good before attempting the real task! Just make sure to inspect your work before plugging in the card. Just in case there is somewhere an accidental solder bridge.
I think the crack in the FBI chip shorted something as well. Reseating the card or flexing it caused the memory chip light up. Luckily, it wasn't that bad. The memory chips seems to be ok.
In the past I’ve had success removing the packing epoxy with concentrated sulfuric acid. It leaves a beautiful clean silicon die but eliminates everything you had to grind through.
Ok, well, I still have another FBI chip that came from the card that had the exploded memory chips. The die in that chip should be in good condition. Maybe I can give that a try some day - but I first need to try something else with that chip. Maybe it's recoverable.
This is getting absolutely ridiculous! 😂 This video blew my mind at least 6 times: The corner repair, the thermal shot of the cracked die, the successful excavation, the discovery of the logo on the chip, the new old stock FBI chips and then of course the final result. That facing worlds victory lap was sooo deserved! Foregone destruction makes for an AWESOME ringtone by the way (as does a lot of tracker music I suppose, but this one still stands out obviously). It's been on my phone for ages now and never gets old. Retro enthusiasts may also appreciate Stuart Brown (Ahoy)'s "The Final Fight" starting at 30s for use as alarm clock, but I'll leave it to the reader to remember (or discover) what it is inspired by. Let me know in the responses if you did! Without spoiling it for others of course. ;)
That's my OSSC (Open Source Scan Converter). I use it to convert the VGA signal to an HDMI signal. The HDMI signal is then captured by OBS using a HDMI to USB capture device.
3:20 i was looking away during the start since i was doing other stuff then looked back over and saw this part i knew what you were going to do but wow that hurt for me to watch ive never done that kind of repair to a chip package only ever to damaged motherboards themselves...
I would have preferred not to do this, but in order to solder on new legs, I had to clear enough of the plastic so that there is enough surface for the small wires to attach and be solid.
I don't know the songs right now, but you can open the video description and scroll down a bit. There should be a section that lists all the music tracks I used in this video. You should find the song from the five songs that are be listed there. Let me know if you can find it - otherwise, I'll check tomorrow.
Ich kann es nicht oft genug sagen. Deine Fähigkeiten mit den ganzen notwendigen Werkzeugen eine derart mitgenommene, fast schon zerstörte Karte zu retten, sind "Over the top!" Und das Witchery den entscheidenden letzten Hinweis gegeben hat, zeigt wie wichtig gute Diagnosetools sind.
Vielen Dank! Ja, ich stimme dir zu - diese Tools sind wirklich eine grosse Hilfe! Ich habe gehoert, dass Witchery bald fuer alle verfuegbar sein wird :)
Just a FYI you can use Nitric acid to decap chips fairly safely. You can find it online pretty cheap. It doesn't do any damage to the die and then you could use a microscope.😁
I remember 3dfx being friendly to the linux community in terms of drivers. This was back when it was tough to get programmer's model info for opensource drivers from manufacturers. Then Nvidia bought them and locked things up so opensource drivers were next to impossible. I remember being very angry about it.
Did you make the golden connectors silver? Well, I did that too in one of my videos. But to be fair, there was already some solder on it when I got it. I agree. It takes five seconds to cover the connector - and it's impossible to remove without expensive gold solution and a lot of work to get it back to gold.
@@bitsundbolts Yeah I did that more than once... Thankfully, none of those cards were rare. I did use chemical gold plating a few times tho. It's not as shiny as factory plating but the result is good enough. Can withstand dozens of insertions for sure.
Yes, unfortunately, that stamp wore off a bit after cleaning the card with isopropyl alcohol. I tried to preserve as much of the stamp as possible, but some of it got removed.
It is an engraving pen. I have it on my website if you are interested in looking it up. I will also add the bits I am using in this video. They are different from the ones that came with the pen. You can find most of the items I am using on my website under the "Affiliate" tab.
amazing work. the card mustve been in a box of heavy hardware getting squished around for years. I havent had a voodoo since the early 2000s, MOJO/witchery looks like an outstanding tool.
Yes, something like what you said must have happened to this card. Without debugging tools like mojo and the new and upcoming witchery, it would be a lot harder to repair those cards.
I'm not sure how well it would work in the real world, but theoretically acetone melts plastic, so if you were to stick the chip in an acetone bath for a while, it should melt the plastic away and keep the chip intact.
I have come across a few cards that when something else was wrong, the RAM chips got very hot, but then became normal when those other issues were fixed. My guess is the main chips could get stuck in memory training during initialization failure and start torturing those poor RAM chips indefinitely XD
Could be! Some initialization routine that just doesn't stop. I have never seen such a behavior before, but good to know! Thanks for sharing and watching :)
very nice and congrats on saving another card. but , if that where mine and I sent it to be fixed . would it be worth it? or cheaper to find another card and sell the one for parts? sure made good content .
Well, considering that I spent about 2 days on this card (repairs only), no - the monetary value is way below the effort. However, sharing this repair with thousands of people watching - almost priceless ;)
@bitsundbolts Great, waiting for the next video of course. I am still trying to find time to start my electronics UA-cam channel but I will find eventually.
Polish herbal candies! I hope you enjoyed them, because as a Pole, I believe ours candys are comparable or better than others, haha :) These candys are from Silesia - Śląskie Kopalnioki roughly translates to "Silesian Fossil" (not exactly), referring to the coal mines in the Silesian Voivodeship. So that's why they are black. And you compared them to German equivalent - well, we all know from history that Silesia was part Polish and part German. As a result, Silesian language, culture, and cuisine are influenced by both nations.
Thank you for this insight! Very interesting. Yes, I did enjoy them. I still have a few left. Kopalnioki tastes familiar and reminded me of my childhood :) Haha - Retro Sweets! And now I understand the color and the symbol as well that you can see on the candy :) Very cool! Thanks for watching the video!
@@bitsundbolts I’m a big fan of your videos and watch them every time. :) As for our Polish sweets - if you ever get the chance, try Ptasie Mleczko by E. Wedel (though even Milka produces their version under the name Alpine Milk, but theirs are more milky than cocoa-flavored), Draże Korsarze and Draże Marynarze by Skawa, Prince Polo wafer, Krówki, and Delicje. I think you can even buy them in Germany. I believe you won’t regret it - these are my favorite Polish treats! :)
Haha, thanks for suggesting! I think I'll have to tell some of my Polish friends to bring some of those next time they go home for visiting family and friends 😀
This is the retro tech repair equivalent of a movie ER doctor going "I'm not declaring her dead yet! Breathe, damn you, breathe!"
Haha, yes!
Then the doctor punches the chest and the person ups their torso from the bed and gives a huge gasp of air and start breathing.
lol
when they’re gone, they’re gone. Might as well fix then
As someone who had to do rework in a job back when these cards weren't that old, you are getting better at this type of thing then we ever were. Although we would never bother fixing a package with broken off pins unless it was an engineering sample or something.
What an amazing video! Not only did you fix the voodoo 2 but you also showed us the guts of the FBI chip :) Amazing!
Thanks Tony! I was curious too how far I can go with my stone age tools :) But I found the 3Dfx logo on the silicon chip!
@@bitsundbolts ahah yes that small logo was just amazing!
You have come a long way in your soldering skills! Very good, high quality work cleaning, reflowing, fixing solder joints and chips! Outstanding work! Well done! Hope you had as much fun working on it as we are having just watching you work!
If you are not aware, you can prevent the Windows 95/98 GUI from loading by adding "bootgui=0" to MSDOS.SYS (remove the Readonly file attribute to edit) then you don't have to fiddle with the F5/F8/shift key during boot.
Thank you! I'm really happy to hear that so many people enjoy watching restorations like this. It was a lot of work, but the outcome is very rewarding!
Thanks for sharing the MSDOS.SYS entry. Usually, the F8 key works. Sometimes, it's just ignored - particularly on this P2B board. I have come across this entry before, but I forgot about it. Next time, I'll add it if I have issues again.
I have a trick for aligning QFP chips: touch the eraser end of a pencil to the PCB and then twist the pencil so the eraser rolls along like a tyre, when the eraser makes contact with the side of the chip it pushes it along slowly
Ah, nice! So, you slowly rotate the pencil over the board and move the chip slightly. You have full control because you probably press the pencil a bit to the PCB. Result: no sudden movements! Thanks for sharing!
turning the pencil like a dial, genius!
Gonna try that, thanks.
@@bitsundboltsDon't forget to use solder mask to cover all traces and connections to the pcb that been exposed
The 3Dfx repair ASMR and the working card at the end of the video makes the kid in me smile from ear to ear.
I guess the FBI chip is not all it was cracked up to be. Sorry, had to say it 👅
Hehe, glad to hear that you enjoyed this one! The card works great and I enjoyed a few rounds of UT and NFS.
I have a feeling that Witchery is going to save a lot of Voodoo cards. You could take that die a cast it in clear epoxy as a nice decoration or paperweight. As usual great job on saving another piece of retro hardware!
That's a great idea! I wondered what to do with that chip... Throwing away a dead 3Dfx chip feels wrong these days.
then a nice sheet of copper hanging on the wall and many of the unsalvageable can be displayed.
I would love to see the die potted in clear resin and set in a ring like a rare gem or a pendant
The soldering and alignment of the pins of the new FPI chip look much better than the factory assembled ones. What dexterity and attention to detail, a work of art 😎
Thank you! Yes, I did pay attention to the chips alignment. A new-old-stock chip deserves that :)
Yeah, I was really impressed. I soldered a CPLD in a similar pkg and while it works, it's obviously off center, so much so I had to bend a few pins at the corners.
It's good to see someone using aluminum tape to protect components. For the curious, if you use Kapton tape and blast it with hot air, it might start to shrink, with the glue pulling on smaller components and dislodging them if the solder underneath is also liquid. Aluminum doesn't shrink when heated, though.
Nice observation! And this is exactly why I upgraded. Kapton tape only works so much - and I think I got some yellow colored fake tape. It shrinks so quickly and doesn't help a lot. This aluminum tape is amazing - works exactly as it should!
I haven't had Chinese Koptan branded tape shrink, and Kapton should behave the same. I have had one tape shrink but it turned out to be fake, it was gold coloured PET tape instead of PI tape.
I think this is what I got - some PET tape that was sold as Kapton tape. I can still use it to fix some electronics to my workboard, but not as a heat shield.
@ Aluminum tape is also quite cheap. It's also what you should use instead of duct tape if you are working on actual ducts, especially since it has no problems with UV.
@ You can probably locally buy good tape from 3D printer shop, ELEGOO a major 3D printer manufacturer sells a kit of 4 different widths, should be good and high quality. The tapes that i got from random Chinese sellers which were good came with a leader which read _"K o p t a n"_ in italic green lettering. The fake tape had no leader or a nondecript leader. Biaxial PET tape is used for electronics work as well but it normally comes teal rather than gold tinted so as to not be confused with other tapes, it's not at all suitable for soldering.
My oldest roll of Koptan is now about 10 years old and the glue has started degrading, i wager a guess real real Kapton should be better at this, but heat resistance is the same and excellent anyway.
Anyway alu works really well and by all reason even better than Kapton for heat shielding, and another option is layering Kapton underneath alu to give it a bit of insulating action for extra super mega shielding.
Alex you are the 3dfx whisperer! Awesome work as always really enjoyed watching you bring this card back to life
Thank you so much! This Voodoo 2 was a fun project and I am glad you enjoyed it.
What an absolutely insane repair. Truly godlike. Those 8 new pins on the TMU look SO clean.
Those pins around the TMU took some time to get right. One wrong move, and the soldering iron is going to wreck havoc on adjacent pins 😅
The unreal tournament intro had me feeling some type of way
thats crazy, I never played the game but that intro to Unreal is actually part of a 3d benchmark for older cards like these but I never knew it was for that game.
@@kyles8524unreal is the older game with the castle flyby. this one is unreal TOURNAMENT.
it might be just me, but i'm really impressed by the soldering skills, that is some clean soldering work, i think it's the best i've seen
Really? Wow, thank you so much!
Seriously next level repair work. Awesome job!
Thank you!
If you go to the car parts store, sometimes you can get sulfuric acid for batteries. If you put some in a glass container and heat it at 200 c for a while, you can concentrate the acid enough to dissolve the black plastic epoxy packaging around IC's to view the die without scraping or sanding. It will also dissolve the green solder mask on the boards too, so you need to be careful with that. Of course you should wear gloves and eye protection when handling harsh chemicals. It's also good to have baking soda nearby incase there are any spills.
I remember how your hands were shaking when you did that k6 mod 1-2 years ago. Your soldering skills have improved A LOT since then. I wish mine were at least close to yours)
Ahhh, yes... One of the earlier videos! Glad to see you are still here! Over the past years, I got a lot more confident working on old hardware. My hands no longer get sweaty when I try to remove a heat spreader or desolder a 3Dfx chip :)
Absolute wow!! This has to be the best tech, repair, delidding video I have ever seen, and as a bonus, a brilliant card is saved from landfill! Top marks my friend! Loved this video!
Thank you so much! I am really happy that you like the video! Thanks for watching :)
I had one of these back in the day. It was really something else to use, totally a revolutionary leap forward in graphic fidelity and framerate. Neat to see one of these again after all these years.
That shot where you just touch the edge of the pins to clean up the bridging. Chef kiss
Haha, nicely explained :)
Brilliant repair! And very interesting to see the inside of that chip! 10/10
Great success. This type of die-art is very common among older cpus. There are beautiful galleries of the die-art on the internet.
Witchery looks like an absolute god send for diagnosing 3DFX cards, thanks for sharing the look at the Die. Glad you had a good crack at repairing the card and got it crackling back into life once again, I had a cracking time watching this video thank you.
3:45 wow, that is beautiful! That is REALLY good. It looks big on camera but remember that those pins are only 0.5mm apart.
You're right. Those pins are tiny! I'm glad you enjoyed the look of the new legs I gave this TMU chip!
Awesome job repairing this 3dfx card, so nice to see it spring into life again after everything it's been through.
Agree! I think this card almost shares a place with the one that had 20 memory chips blown up by a bad power supply. Funnily, on that card, the FBI chip was also damaged. Nevertheless, this was a great project and I am happy that the card works again! Thanks for watching!
awesome efforts, going thru all that. amazing view of the cracks and die. looks like a scratched up hologram sticker. @23:01 so funny noise, like you ate an icky candy. props to witchery and its maker, most valuable. new card beat dylan no problem.
This card was challenging, but I'm very happy with the outcome. And I'm happy to have found 3Dfx on the chip - even after all that damage.
@@bitsundboltsi laughed when you brought out the sand paper, good luck with that. how much were the nos cks? i havnt broken/fixed my card with the bent pins on the ck yet
I paid 35 euros per chip. They were sold together.
In the end I loved seeing this electronic archaeology....
That chip was in there for about 25 years! It saw the light again :)
Amazing work, very inspiring. Saving that Voodoo card is like saving a piece of history. Well done.
Thank you! And thanks for watching the video!
I was particularly impressed by your drag soldering technique when installing the new FBI chip. You are really good sir, wow.
Thank you 😊. It took a while and I practiced a lot! I usually reflow all three chips of Voodoo 2 cards that come to my desk. It's just a matter of time before those solder connections break. By reflowing the chips, I reset the clock - for another 20-30 years! This made me get better at reflowing those chips.
Thanks for watching 🙏
Thank you for bringing a Voodoo 2 back to life.
Thank you for watching the video!
And to think that modern GPU's and CPU's are made using way way smaller sizes now, is just mind-blowing how humans were able to work at such scales with our huge tools.
I definitely felt like a caveman digging this chip out of the plastic ;)
I love repairs like this
Well done. When you brought out the sandpaper for the chip surface I guessed it would take you forever, glad you changed approach. Fixing the card is reward enough!
Yeah, I thought the sanding paper would work a lot better, but that wasn't the case. At least we still could see the die and the card worked in the end.
damn that Unreal Tournament intro at the end really hit home... Very cool and in depth video!
Thank you!
"Facing Worlds"... my favorite UT leve!. BTW, great job on the repair!
It is a great map and also one of my favorites! Thanks for watching
Always love to see old tech being revived :D
Those closing scenes made me feel warm and fuzzy inside
You have incredible patience.
It wasn't an easy project, but I am very happy with the outcome and that I can share it with my audience!
Like an archaeological dig site - the hunt for the 3dfx die. Hats off to you sir. 🎩👍
Hehe, thank you!
"śląskie kopalnioki" candies because there are a lot of carbon mines in silesian region in southern Poland :) greetengs from Poland
Ohhh, now I understand the imprint in the candy! Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Honestly I thought it would have been the RAM chip that had gone bad from being overdriven. Well done.
You got a knack for this stuff! Great job man.
Thanks!
Oh, NFS Porsche, I had absolutely loved that game! ❤
Anyway, nice video and good job fixing the card!
Thank you! I think it is one of my favorite NFS titles.
Great Job fixing this card. Nice upgrade in editing and the music works as well. BTW I think the drill down of the chip should have been a separate video which was very interesting to watch nonetheless.
Yes, it is very interesting, but also very repetitive. There's not much happening for a long time digging into the plastic. Then, the golden bind wires appear. Then you're close to the silicon chip.
I might make another video doing this, but using a better method to preserve the die.
@@bitsundbolts Yes, that is also true. Maybe a time lapsed short then :)
awesome!!! great structure and pacing! i have this exact voodoo 2 tattooed down my whole forearm so this video hits me in the feels :)
Haha, seriously? Hardcore! 😅 Thanks for watching!
your videos are a work of art
Thank you!
Wow, that was seriously impressive. You make the impossible look easy.
Glad you enjoyed the repair! It was a bit of a wild ride :) Thanks for watching!
I really enjoy your content.
Glad to hear that! Thank you!
Very cool seeing the 3dfx core.
Good Job as always😁Thank you for saving that old Monster 🙂
Thanks! Every Monster needs to be saved ;)
New subscriber, like the video - I had a voodoo card in the day so i have a bit of nostalgia to them.
Thanks for the sub! Those cards were amazing back then!
ah that unreal tournament at the end has me feeling like a teenager again. those were the days
I saved the video to watch later but I cant resist! I need to watch it right now ! :)
I am sure it won't disappoint!
Been watching your channel for awhile. You made your own Simm memory modules and now repair Voodoo2 cards. This one was the worst condition cards and you restored it to working condition. I'd say your certified on doing these for collectors if they have a faulty card since you know the in's and outs on them and have a good success rate.
Thank you! Yes, this card was in pretty bad shape. Your comment almost sounds like I'll be working on some Quantum3D equipment in the future 😀. Let's see! Thanks for watching!
3dfx Logo found! Nice to see you play some UT towards the end 🤠
Yep! Mission accomplished :)
Amazing repair!!! You must feel great!
Thank you! Yes, it definitely feels like an accomplishment!
Thank you for saving another beloved 3dfx cards. In future they become harder and harder to find
ooooh, i've been hoping for the cracked chip investigation! this is gonna be good.
I hope you'll like the video :)
Awesome video, fun to watch and great job saving one of the most important graphic cards in history! ❤ May I ask which flux you're using?
Thank you! I'm using AmTech NC-559-ASM.
I got mine from AliExpress. There's a link to the store in my website under affiliate links if you're interested.
Wow, and I thought I was the only one from PL watching this :D That moment with kopalnioki was unexpected, really got me! Hope you like them, not everybody likes them they are quite unique.
I really enjoyed Kopalnioki - they are great! Yes, there are quite a few people from Poland watching: 4.1% of viewers to be precise (fourth largest group after US, Germany, and UK)!
Great work, really great. My respect!
Thank you!
Wow, I was kinda rooting for the original 3D Accelerator that could, to be fixed, and you did it! Awesome job!
It's nice to know that these retro cards can be saved, and brought back into service.
Such a repair on this card must be some kind of Wizardry, or Sorcery....or.... ;)
As long as I have spare parts, I will continue to fix those cards! Each time one of these cards comes back to life, I get extremely happy!
Would have been a miracle if the Die or its contacts remained fine with a crack like that.
Glad you got spares.
Yes, it would have been a miracle! Now I have only one FBI chip left :) It shall be used for a card in bigger trouble than this one :)
A big smile, there could have not been a better ending, in both ways as the dead chip still had something to give to all 3dfx fans with the awesome logo. Cheers!
IT LIVES, IT LIVES HAHAHA
Btw, i have an 8mb to crossfire one of these days with a 12mb one, just gathering some experience (and courage) watching you to upgrade it to 12mb (already got the extra 100mhz vram chips).
Thank you! I'm very happy with the results and the video, too!
I am sure you'll be able to upgrade your Voodoo 2. You need a nice soldering tip and a bit of flux would help too. Gathering experience is always good before attempting the real task!
Just make sure to inspect your work before plugging in the card. Just in case there is somewhere an accidental solder bridge.
I think I've seen that particular memory chip heating up on different Voodoo2 repair video where the card was shorted. Anyway, great repair.
I think the crack in the FBI chip shorted something as well. Reseating the card or flexing it caused the memory chip light up.
Luckily, it wasn't that bad. The memory chips seems to be ok.
Amazing work!
Thank you!
Your soldering and desoldering isn’t just skill, it’s art in motion!
Thank you so much! Glad to hear that!
16:20 for this type of work BCM3 "Microwave" tips one of the best.
I like happy endings.
Amazing repair! Was cool to see the die 🙂
Thanks!
In the past I’ve had success removing the packing epoxy with concentrated sulfuric acid. It leaves a beautiful clean silicon die but eliminates everything you had to grind through.
Ok, well, I still have another FBI chip that came from the card that had the exploded memory chips. The die in that chip should be in good condition. Maybe I can give that a try some day - but I first need to try something else with that chip. Maybe it's recoverable.
This is getting absolutely ridiculous! 😂 This video blew my mind at least 6 times: The corner repair, the thermal shot of the cracked die, the successful excavation, the discovery of the logo on the chip, the new old stock FBI chips and then of course the final result. That facing worlds victory lap was sooo deserved!
Foregone destruction makes for an AWESOME ringtone by the way (as does a lot of tracker music I suppose, but this one still stands out obviously). It's been on my phone for ages now and never gets old. Retro enthusiasts may also appreciate Stuart Brown (Ahoy)'s "The Final Fight" starting at 30s for use as alarm clock, but I'll leave it to the reader to remember (or discover) what it is inspired by. Let me know in the responses if you did! Without spoiling it for others of course. ;)
I had the same system. A PIII 450MHz overclocked to 504MHz and a Voodoo II 12MB. It was awesome. Sweet memories.
What is the device at 35:23? That looks interesting.
That's my OSSC (Open Source Scan Converter). I use it to convert the VGA signal to an HDMI signal.
The HDMI signal is then captured by OBS using a HDMI to USB capture device.
3:20 i was looking away during the start since i was doing other stuff then looked back over and saw this part
i knew what you were going to do but wow that hurt for me to watch ive never done that kind of repair to a chip package only ever to damaged motherboards themselves...
I would have preferred not to do this, but in order to solder on new legs, I had to clear enough of the plastic so that there is enough surface for the small wires to attach and be solid.
What is the music you used when soldering the new FBI chip. Its beautiful. I want to listen to more by them.
I don't know the songs right now, but you can open the video description and scroll down a bit. There should be a section that lists all the music tracks I used in this video. You should find the song from the five songs that are be listed there.
Let me know if you can find it - otherwise, I'll check tomorrow.
Ich kann es nicht oft genug sagen. Deine Fähigkeiten mit den ganzen notwendigen Werkzeugen eine derart mitgenommene, fast schon zerstörte Karte zu retten, sind "Over the top!" Und das Witchery den entscheidenden letzten Hinweis gegeben hat, zeigt wie wichtig gute Diagnosetools sind.
Vielen Dank! Ja, ich stimme dir zu - diese Tools sind wirklich eine grosse Hilfe! Ich habe gehoert, dass Witchery bald fuer alle verfuegbar sein wird :)
Kopalnioki?!? That was the least expected thing in this video. Greetings from Poland!
Hehe, this video is full of surprises :D Thanks for watching!
On miniature of this video, the "crater" on the right looks like Poland :D
Just a FYI you can use Nitric acid to decap chips fairly safely. You can find it online pretty cheap. It doesn't do any damage to the die and then you could use a microscope.😁
Thanks for letting me know. If I ever plan on doing something like this again, I will consider a different method to dissolve the plastic.
@@bitsundbolts Nitric acid is so awesome because it dissolves so cleanly and without residue or left overs. Give it a try you'll be impressed!!😀
You killed that repair! M-M-M-MONSTER KILL
Ahhh, I should have ended the video with that 🤣
Hehe, thanks for watching 😀
I remember 3dfx being friendly to the linux community in terms of drivers. This was back when it was tough to get programmer's model info for opensource drivers from manufacturers. Then Nvidia bought them and locked things up so opensource drivers were next to impossible. I remember being very angry about it.
I love to watch your excellent skills! It give me inspiration to do the same once I have a microscope.
Nice to hear that! A microscope is a very powerful tool!
Hope all goes well !!!
How good are you now - that was one hell of a repair -
Thank you!
11:06 Suggestion to tape PCI connector when doing soldering near it. I learned that the hard way 😒
Did you make the golden connectors silver? Well, I did that too in one of my videos. But to be fair, there was already some solder on it when I got it.
I agree. It takes five seconds to cover the connector - and it's impossible to remove without expensive gold solution and a lot of work to get it back to gold.
@@bitsundbolts Yeah I did that more than once... Thankfully, none of those cards were rare. I did use chemical gold plating a few times tho. It's not as shiny as factory plating but the result is good enough. Can withstand dozens of insertions for sure.
Very grate work. There is a stamp on the backside 2498 this means week 24 in 1998 and stand for test or completed ate of the card.
Yes, unfortunately, that stamp wore off a bit after cleaning the card with isopropyl alcohol. I tried to preserve as much of the stamp as possible, but some of it got removed.
great work, glad you rescued another one - only 5,000,0001 to go! LOL
Haha, I have a feeling I might never run out of Voodoo cards to repair!
Would be interesting to try overclocking a shaved down chip
Nice work
Thank you!
@16:00 peak 1990s JRPG harbour town ambient music lol
Nice job!
Thanks!
What was the tool you used to grind down the corner of the chip to add pins?
It is an engraving pen. I have it on my website if you are interested in looking it up. I will also add the bits I am using in this video. They are different from the ones that came with the pen. You can find most of the items I am using on my website under the "Affiliate" tab.
Wow was that driven over by a truck or something!? Awesome job :)
Someone took a chance and bought those cards on eBay. Well, I guess it's good to know that even cards in such bad condition can be fixed!
amazing work. the card mustve been in a box of heavy hardware getting squished around for years. I havent had a voodoo since the early 2000s, MOJO/witchery looks like an outstanding tool.
Yes, something like what you said must have happened to this card. Without debugging tools like mojo and the new and upcoming witchery, it would be a lot harder to repair those cards.
very interesting, i had a voodoo 3 2000 PCI when i was 15 years, you could play anything with it, but sometimes it was a bit slow :)
They were nice cards and I still like them to play old games today (when I get the time - which is almost never 😅).
I'm not sure how well it would work in the real world, but theoretically acetone melts plastic, so if you were to stick the chip in an acetone bath for a while, it should melt the plastic away and keep the chip intact.
I have come across a few cards that when something else was wrong, the RAM chips got very hot, but then became normal when those other issues were fixed. My guess is the main chips could get stuck in memory training during initialization failure and start torturing those poor RAM chips indefinitely XD
Could be! Some initialization routine that just doesn't stop. I have never seen such a behavior before, but good to know! Thanks for sharing and watching :)
very nice and congrats on saving another card. but , if that where mine and I sent it to be fixed . would it be worth it? or cheaper to find another card and sell the one for parts? sure made good content .
Well, considering that I spent about 2 days on this card (repairs only), no - the monetary value is way below the effort. However, sharing this repair with thousands of people watching - almost priceless ;)
You can get 0.3mm solder wire and you can actually solder this kind of chips pin by pin if you feel bored
Hehe, I never get bored 🤣 I need to work on the next video!
@bitsundbolts Great, waiting for the next video of course. I am still trying to find time to start my electronics UA-cam channel but I will find eventually.
Polish herbal candies! I hope you enjoyed them, because as a Pole, I believe ours candys are comparable or better than others, haha :)
These candys are from Silesia - Śląskie Kopalnioki roughly translates to "Silesian Fossil" (not exactly), referring to the coal mines in the Silesian Voivodeship. So that's why they are black.
And you compared them to German equivalent - well, we all know from history that Silesia was part Polish and part German. As a result, Silesian language, culture, and cuisine are influenced by both nations.
Thank you for this insight! Very interesting. Yes, I did enjoy them. I still have a few left. Kopalnioki tastes familiar and reminded me of my childhood :) Haha - Retro Sweets! And now I understand the color and the symbol as well that you can see on the candy :) Very cool! Thanks for watching the video!
@@bitsundbolts I’m a big fan of your videos and watch them every time. :)
As for our Polish sweets - if you ever get the chance, try Ptasie Mleczko by E. Wedel (though even Milka produces their version under the name Alpine Milk, but theirs are more milky than cocoa-flavored), Draże Korsarze and Draże Marynarze by Skawa, Prince Polo wafer, Krówki, and Delicje. I think you can even buy them in Germany. I believe you won’t regret it - these are my favorite Polish treats! :)
Haha, thanks for suggesting! I think I'll have to tell some of my Polish friends to bring some of those next time they go home for visiting family and friends 😀
Someone wrestled with that videocard! 😅
Haha, looks like it!
Kopalnioki! ❤