Nice. Had a voodoo 5500 as a kid. It was a family pc. The number of hours blown away on that system playing quake 3, unreal, the sims was a peak era of my childhood. Now the card resides in my grandmas pc where she uses it to play bridge lol... never had the heart to ask her to let me swap it out. She's had it for almost 20 years.
I'm the original owner of the PCI version of this card. It worked the last time I tried it about 5-6 years ago. I still have a lga775 motherboard it should work in. Keep saying I'm going to dig it out and try it.
Im so glad so se that there are peps that still loves this old cards. It warms my nerdy heart. Thank you for the great video and keep up the great work you do.
Thanks so much, Necroware! It really means a lot 🙂.. Your repair videos have been a huge inspiration to me and have helped to give me the confidence to try things like this. Thanks for all that you do! 👍
I was just thinking the other day... I wish I had a channel I can watch that has all the tools and motivation for repair but has no idea what they are doing like me... And here you are my new friend!
Just subbed to this channel after watching the Voodoo 3 repairathon, now I'm hooked. Very slick presentation, production and an easy watch. Can already tell this channel is on the up.
I have a small tech channel myself and it is very encouraging to see other small channels growing in the Wild Wild West (www) of UA-cam. I loved your repair video and ofc I did subscribe. Keep it up.
Goodness. I'm sitting on a goldmine. I found my 5500 in its original box that I put away in my surplus cupboard years ago. I should throw together some old PC components and see if it still works. No reason to think it wouldn't unless those caps are prone to deteriorate over time. I feel some retro time coming on.
As an "experienced" solderer, good job! One tip I learned during my IPC7711 training was to prior to laying down your SMD component, put solder on one of the pads and then put your component down and melt the solder:)
Thanks for the feedback! I have tried this method as well in the past while replacing some broken off SMD caps on a different card. It worked really well.
Awesome seeing someone putting such passion into original hardware. I have started collecting a few little pieces of older hardware from my youth, though no Voodoo cards. This makes me think I should save the remaining Voodoo cards for people like you rather than just putting old cards in a display.
I see a pattern here... I also announced the 1000th subs a few weeks ago and since then I got about the same subs you have now. I see YT algorithm has worked the same for us! :) It's well earned though, your videos are of very high quality, and there is a lot shown in a short time. I like your techniques and the fact you're not shy in showing your mistakes, from which we all learn about. I am no expert in electronics and I am also learning on my way so I am aware that my techniques might not be the most elegant. I see a bit of myself in your troubleshooting - but I cannot match your English! :) I'm glad I found your channel, well done!
Thanks very much for the kind words! Congratulations on the recent growth as well! I just subscribed to your channel and will definitely check it out. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the growth in the last couple of months. It seems REALLY difficult to get off the ground when starting out. The YT algorithm remains a complete mystery to me :)
Just checked out a couple of your videos, your content is excellent! Looking forward to seeing more. Oh, and just wanted to mention too that your English is perfect :) Thanks again.
@@vswitchzero same here. When you’re below 1000 it seems that it won’t matter what you publish, nobody is watching your videos! And your videos are good! Thanks for subscribing!
I remember this card being announced and I couldn’t wait. Picked it up shortly after it’s release date. Damn good card. I only wish the the VooDoo 5 6000 would’ve gotten released.
Great repair job! If I can give a tip, use pre-cut short pieces of solder wick. This way it'll much easier to remove (old) solder as no heat from the iron will travel up the solder wick spool and get lost 😉 Also you might consider investing in a micro soldering station with those small knife edge like soldering tips for easier soldering of those fine pitch IC pins.
Thanks for your comment! Great tip on the wick - I'll definitely give that a try next time. You can definitely feel the heat travel up the wick even when holding it several inches away from the end. I just picked up the Hakko 888d that I used in this video and definitely need to get some more tips for it. I've seen people do drag soldering with a knife-style tip. I'll have to give that a shot one day.
Wow! Great work on reviving the V55. This card transformed my gaming back in 2000 - I used to play Janes Longbow 2 with it and before/after was night/day. I still have the card in its original box, it is one of those things I'll never use again but never part with either.
This reminds me on my electronics classes in high school. Teacher had a handful of systems from 80s 90s 00s for us to diagnose and repair. Component level repair on pcbs was only tought up to early 90s boards. Limited micro soldering and smd components.
I still have one of these that I bought new at the time. This card smoked just about everything on the market at the time, and the anti-aliasing was truly remarkable. Got it home, and discovered my power supply wasn't up to the task, but with a new PSU I got a few years of enjoyment from the card. Great repair job - congrats on many new subscribers!
i've got one of these cards(since new, decades ago) in storage i've been wanting to break out and see if it'll work or not on a ultimate 2000's retro build. damn it was a sad day watching @3dfx #3dfx go down in flames, I still remember the day i bought this card and i was so stoked to finally have a semi high end card for a change.
I had the Voodoo 5500 PCI version. I think I had it around 1999-2000? Cost me £199.99. Great card at the time but once I’d swapped to a GeForce 2 64Mb the difference was incredible! The GeForce was AGP so that may have helped as well. The biggest difference was the explosions and wall damage in Red Faction.
Great job there, well done so satisfying fixing stuff and getting a bargin. Before moving in to IT and programming, my first job from higher education was a digital bench technician, I was already quite familiar with soldered before starting that job, but really got to hone my skills. Two tips i can think of, if you want to get better at drag/wave soldering, if your current iron will take it, buy a tip with a well, a small dimple on the lower angled very end. Weller probably make the best, they are smooth so don't catch and bend pins and the dimple is like a reservoir of soldier as you move along the pins of the component. I always found it easier to tack one end pin like you did, but use that to then align them chip, don't worry there plenty of give to move the chip ic around without snapping the tacked pin, it just gives you one less angle to worry about. The other is a really nice pair of tweezers, with a very fine end for smd components, maybe one straight and one curved. Only ever use them for smd work and keep them pristine, stored in a box as once they are bent its very hard to get them back and your tiny smd part will ping off when trying to grip them. Speaking of, a really nice pair of tweezers should allow you to confidently pick up a 0603 resistor even a 0402, place is where it needs to be while still griping it and tack one side, so you don't have to use the sticky flux. Using your little finger on the pcb to steady your hand try to get to the point where you can just pickup the component without letting go to push it around trying to line it up and line it up while gripping but as I say without quality correct tweezers this impossible. Hope you don't think I'm trying to be a know it all, I'm way out of practice but I can still see it in my head how to approach things but know what worked, and there's a reason those techniques were taught to us. At the end of the day though you use what you have and improvise and I have to say you did really well aligning the smds and memory ics.
Thanks very much, I appreciate you sharing those soldering tips with me! I’m definitely going to try to find an iron tip like you described and will try to get some practice on a scrap board one of these days. Thanks again! 👍
This was the GPU that solidified my love for PC gaming. It made Unreal and Unreal Tournament look amazing back then (which were my favorite games). I was sick when 3DFX went out of business, I tried to keep it up to date with 3rd party drivers but eventually succombed when nVidia released the Geforce 4 Ti4200 which I used till the FX series launched.
Great video Mike, glad things are going well. Well done project here, super cool you got it working. In my head, this is still an unattainable high end GPU of amazement. Nice digital magnifier.
Man, I can't quite define what it is, but there's something so cosy for me about the Windows 2000 look ... I used to be able to spend ages just moving the mouse around and enjoying the shadow! That background shade too!
Such a great video. I had one of these cards brand new back in the day and then Voodoo went under- so it sat around until I ditched it- very disappointing looking back; I should have kept it. So glad you persevered; you deserved this win !
Fantastic vid! Just found you randomly. I have a 5500 coming in from eBay I bought cheap that has a broken fan blade on one of the vga coolers. So that'll be ... fun. I'm going to put aftermarket heatsinks over each chip and then have a large fan cooling the two mounted above them. I'm hoping the rest of the card works as he says it does.
Thanks very much for your comment! I saw the photos of your new 5500 on Twitter. Best of luck with the cooling system modification. Enjoy the awesome card! :)
That's awesome! You've almost inspired me to pick up a soldering iron and start playing with some older parts from my stash... almost.. lol. Grats on 1K! I hit that mark a few months ago. It's a great feeling :)
You're right to recap the card. 80s and 90s SMD electrolytics are notorious for seal failure and leaking. What's insidious about SMD electrolytics is that the base of the cap will wick the leaked electrolyte and keep it under the cap, keeping the problem hidden a lot longer than a normal radial or axial cap. I've had to recap all of my Voodoo cards because of leaking SMD electrolytics, as well as tons of other electronics from the era with SMD caps.
Very true! So much harder to spot bad SMDs than TH vented caps that's for sure. I've got all the caps required, just need to find some time. Will probably replace the two big polymer ones too for good measure.
Thats a great job on the repair and awesome perseverance to keep going at it. The old retro hardware can really test your patience sometime. Plus it's great to see another iconic card brought back to life and working again. I hope we get to see it in a future build sometime!
A tip for soldering SMDs : Tin all the pads before placing the chip, aligning might be a bit harder, but all you have to do is secure 2 pins to keep it locked up then you can drag your iron without any solder in it, the soldier thats in the pads will do the job, i would apply gentle pressure on top of the chip just to make sure it all remains solid while dragging. Having a knife type tip helps, then all you have to do is nudge test the pins once you're done.
Congratulations on your +1K subs! I can honestly say that your videos are very satisfying to watch. The fact that you’re also very satisfied by the results of your work, makes the videos perfect. Thanks for that!
I'm somewhat of a beginner myself as well on soldering. But i found that if i absolutely soak the board on flux, the dragging works and i have no blobs/bridges. And even if i get bridges, again soaking it in flux makes it magically disappear when touched with iron. But as you, i'm also probably doing it wrong, but this has so far worked for me.
Thanks for the tip! .. Flux can definitely work some magic. I'm going to try to add more when I start seeing the bridges next time. I need to experiment with some different iron tips too. I've found that there are so many ways to "get the job done" - not necessarily wrong, but some take longer or make more of a mess. Hey, what whatever works and you are most comfortable with is the way to go :)
Just found your channel and I'm really enjoying the content. A recommendation to add to your tools, a 12w precision iron. Personally I've always used the Antex 12w. It makes working with smd components where you have to use an iron childsplay, far far easier. 👍
Very cool video! When I was last at my parents' house in 2017 I founded my old Voodoo 5 5500 AGP card, but I didn't bring it home with me as I had so many other retro gaming finds there that I needed to fit in my suitcase.😅 I have an old 440BX motherboard with a P3 700MHz and 384 MB of SDRAM. I've been thinking of putting Windows 98SE on it and making it a retro gaming late 90's and earlier PC gaming machine. I wonder if my card still works. It worked when I took it out, but it's been sitting for years untested.
Great work man. Practice practice practice that slide soldering technique. I used to just use junk being thrown away at goodwills and stuff like that to practice with. Also, I would've replaced all the ram chips.
Thanks! I definitely need to find some time to get more practice with drag soldering. I would have liked to replace all the RAM, but was still quite nervous every time I did a chip. Maybe once I get some more experience I'll go back and do the others too :)
Fantastic job with the repairs on this. I dabble in stuff like this and have fixed many cards over the years, but I haven't done any surface mount memory or chip swapping yet. It would be super helpful if you could let us know what temperatures you use on your iron and hot air station when performing the various tasks you're doing. If you still remember now what you used that would be great, but for future videos it'd be awesome to hear what temp your iron is running at, at least a few times during the video. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks! Good idea, I’ll be sure to include that for future videos. I generally keep my iron at 725-750, which works well in most situations. For hot air, I’d have to check but I think it’s about 385C/725F as well.
Its a really cool card. If only i got one before the prices went through the roof. The dream tho would be one of those remade voodoo cards (shaman?) It's amazing and if only i had the money i would buy it in a heartbeat.
Nice work. And that second memory replacement wasn't a waste. You said yourself you'd improved your skills, so it was great follow-up practice if nothing else. Also, drag soldering seems to be easier on newer boards. Better solder mask maybe, and no corrosion? That, and a new, small wedge tip combined with generous flux and finding a "good" tip temperature (if you have the option) can really help.
Nice job Mike Your video refreshed my young age memories, I desperately wanted a voodoo card but my parents didn't budge LOL. Anyway, please change your flux, it will make your repairs much cleaner. Something like Amtech 559
Thanks for your comment! The more experience I get soldering, the more I can appreciate what a big difference quality flux can make. I actually just picked up some Amtech 559 based on some other people's recommendations too (seems to be highly regarded). It works so much better than the regular rosin paste I was using before, that's for sure.
Pretty clean soldering joints there man. 👍 😎 And yes the blue artifacting is from bad SDRAM modules. The Hyundai RAM used on many cards was known for failing fairly bad, especially with the 1.18 BIOS. The SK Hynix SDRAM was actually much better to have and was more stable.
I remember playing EverQuest on that GPU, with the GLide API and the AA on it looked great. Had the 5500 AGP version of it, was a great card eventually replaced it with a Geforce2 Ultra 64 down the road.
Dude it's a VOODOO!! 🍿🔥
Nothing is more satisfying is to see how someone brings a new life to a broken thing. Thanks for your dedication!
Thanks very much! :)
Your perseverance is inspiring! Pretty great you were able to bring this one back, and the population of working V5 5500s grows by one. :D
Thanks so much for your comment! It was a lot of work, but a great learning experience and well worth the effort 🙂
Ah, Voodoo. I still have a working 16MB Voodoo Banshee. I loved the Voodoo line.
Wahoo! 1k! Keep it Up Awesome Choice for the Milestone
Thanks, Philip! 👍
Nice. Had a voodoo 5500 as a kid. It was a family pc. The number of hours blown away on that system playing quake 3, unreal, the sims was a peak era of my childhood.
Now the card resides in my grandmas pc where she uses it to play bridge lol... never had the heart to ask her to let me swap it out. She's had it for almost 20 years.
That's incredibly cool that you got it working! You're right; there's nothing like the satisfaction of fixing it yourself. Congrats!
Thanks, Charlie! So true 👍
Apple hated your comment
I'm the original owner of the PCI version of this card. It worked the last time I tried it about 5-6 years ago. I still have a lga775 motherboard it should work in. Keep saying I'm going to dig it out and try it.
Im so glad so se that there are peps that still loves this old cards. It warms my nerdy heart. Thank you for the great video and keep up the great work you do.
Thanks so much! :)
Congratulations to 1K subs! Great job!
Thanks so much, Necroware! It really means a lot 🙂.. Your repair videos have been a huge inspiration to me and have helped to give me the confidence to try things like this. Thanks for all that you do! 👍
I was just thinking the other day... I wish I had a channel I can watch that has all the tools and motivation for repair but has no idea what they are doing like me... And here you are my new friend!
Just subbed to this channel after watching the Voodoo 3 repairathon, now I'm hooked. Very slick presentation, production and an easy watch. Can already tell this channel is on the up.
Thanks so much, really appreciate it! :)
I have a small tech channel myself and it is very encouraging to see other small channels growing in the Wild Wild West (www) of UA-cam. I loved your repair video and ofc I did subscribe. Keep it up.
Thanks so much, it means a lot! 👍🙂
MadOnion - what a blast from the past. I remember those benchmarks looking incredible!
How awesome was that! Amazing detail and good eye to catch those problems. Now this can be applied to every old rebuild.
Thanks very much! :)
Goodness. I'm sitting on a goldmine. I found my 5500 in its original box that I put away in my surplus cupboard years ago. I should throw together some old PC components and see if it still works. No reason to think it wouldn't unless those caps are prone to deteriorate over time. I feel some retro time coming on.
As an "experienced" solderer, good job! One tip I learned during my IPC7711 training was to prior to laying down your SMD component, put solder on one of the pads and then put your component down and melt the solder:)
Thanks for the feedback! I have tried this method as well in the past while replacing some broken off SMD caps on a different card. It worked really well.
@@vswitchzero If in the future you need help with soldering or clues to what may be faulty you can contact me:)
1 year later and you now have 13.4k subscribers 🙂 I enjoy your video's with repairs. thankyou so much 🙂
Thank you very much! 😁👍
Awesome seeing someone putting such passion into original hardware. I have started collecting a few little pieces of older hardware from my youth, though no Voodoo cards. This makes me think I should save the remaining Voodoo cards for people like you rather than just putting old cards in a display.
The amount of problems with this card is incredible!! Great work on the perseverance and repair of the card!
Thanks very much! :)
I had no doubts that you would have find the problem by touching the card 🤣
Congrats for the 1K and keep it up!
Thanks very much for the comment! LOL - yep. I poke pretty much everything that doesn't work properly now 😁
Great job! Definitely worth saving this card!
Thanks, Carsten! So true - every 3dfx card deserves a second chance, that's for sure 👍
this is the best retro computer video I've ever seen
Thank you very much for the kind words! It means a lot! :)
I see a pattern here... I also announced the 1000th subs a few weeks ago and since then I got about the same subs you have now. I see YT algorithm has worked the same for us! :) It's well earned though, your videos are of very high quality, and there is a lot shown in a short time. I like your techniques and the fact you're not shy in showing your mistakes, from which we all learn about. I am no expert in electronics and I am also learning on my way so I am aware that my techniques might not be the most elegant. I see a bit of myself in your troubleshooting - but I cannot match your English! :) I'm glad I found your channel, well done!
Thanks very much for the kind words! Congratulations on the recent growth as well! I just subscribed to your channel and will definitely check it out. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the growth in the last couple of months. It seems REALLY difficult to get off the ground when starting out. The YT algorithm remains a complete mystery to me :)
Just checked out a couple of your videos, your content is excellent! Looking forward to seeing more. Oh, and just wanted to mention too that your English is perfect :) Thanks again.
@@vswitchzero same here. When you’re below 1000 it seems that it won’t matter what you publish, nobody is watching your videos! And your videos are good!
Thanks for subscribing!
@@vswitchzero just seen the second comment about the English, that’s very kind of you to say! Thanks 🖖
I remember this card being announced and I couldn’t wait. Picked it up shortly after it’s release date. Damn good card. I only wish the the VooDoo 5 6000 would’ve gotten released.
Great repair job! If I can give a tip, use pre-cut short pieces of solder wick. This way it'll much easier to remove (old) solder as no heat from the iron will travel up the solder wick spool and get lost 😉 Also you might consider investing in a micro soldering station with those small knife edge like soldering tips for easier soldering of those fine pitch IC pins.
Thanks for your comment! Great tip on the wick - I'll definitely give that a try next time. You can definitely feel the heat travel up the wick even when holding it several inches away from the end. I just picked up the Hakko 888d that I used in this video and definitely need to get some more tips for it. I've seen people do drag soldering with a knife-style tip. I'll have to give that a shot one day.
Wow! Great work on reviving the V55. This card transformed my gaming back in 2000 - I used to play Janes Longbow 2 with it and before/after was night/day. I still have the card in its original box, it is one of those things I'll never use again but never part with either.
This reminds me on my electronics classes in high school. Teacher had a handful of systems from 80s 90s 00s for us to diagnose and repair. Component level repair on pcbs was only tought up to early 90s boards. Limited micro soldering and smd components.
Good Job . The legend came back to life🤩
Sorry you had to go through all of that but im so glad there were so many problems for the video. Nice job on the repair!
Thanks very much! :)
John Wick is a magic tool :)) (greetings to Ontario from Czech Republic)
Great video! Nicely done and great teaching and sharing style! Looking forward to future videos.
Thanks so much for the kind words! 👍
I still have one of these that I bought new at the time. This card smoked just about everything on the market at the time, and the anti-aliasing was truly remarkable. Got it home, and discovered my power supply wasn't up to the task, but with a new PSU I got a few years of enjoyment from the card. Great repair job - congrats on many new subscribers!
Thanks very much! :)
i've got one of these cards(since new, decades ago) in storage i've been wanting to break out and see if it'll work or not on a ultimate 2000's retro build. damn it was a sad day watching @3dfx #3dfx go down in flames, I still remember the day i bought this card and i was so stoked to finally have a semi high end card for a change.
thanks for preserving gaming history mate excellent work
I had the Voodoo 5500 PCI version. I think I had it around 1999-2000? Cost me £199.99. Great card at the time but once I’d swapped to a GeForce 2 64Mb the difference was incredible! The GeForce was AGP so that may have helped as well. The biggest difference was the explosions and wall damage in Red Faction.
Great job there, well done so satisfying fixing stuff and getting a bargin. Before moving in to IT and programming, my first job from higher education was a digital bench technician, I was already quite familiar with soldered before starting that job, but really got to hone my skills. Two tips i can think of, if you want to get better at drag/wave soldering, if your current iron will take it, buy a tip with a well, a small dimple on the lower angled very end. Weller probably make the best, they are smooth so don't catch and bend pins and the dimple is like a reservoir of soldier as you move along the pins of the component. I always found it easier to tack one end pin like you did, but use that to then align them chip, don't worry there plenty of give to move the chip ic around without snapping the tacked pin, it just gives you one less angle to worry about. The other is a really nice pair of tweezers, with a very fine end for smd components, maybe one straight and one curved. Only ever use them for smd work and keep them pristine, stored in a box as once they are bent its very hard to get them back and your tiny smd part will ping off when trying to grip them. Speaking of, a really nice pair of tweezers should allow you to confidently pick up a 0603 resistor even a 0402, place is where it needs to be while still griping it and tack one side, so you don't have to use the sticky flux. Using your little finger on the pcb to steady your hand try to get to the point where you can just pickup the component without letting go to push it around trying to line it up and line it up while gripping but as I say without quality correct tweezers this impossible. Hope you don't think I'm trying to be a know it all, I'm way out of practice but I can still see it in my head how to approach things but know what worked, and there's a reason those techniques were taught to us. At the end of the day though you use what you have and improvise and I have to say you did really well aligning the smds and memory ics.
Thanks very much, I appreciate you sharing those soldering tips with me! I’m definitely going to try to find an iron tip like you described and will try to get some practice on a scrap board one of these days. Thanks again! 👍
Electronics engineer here, your soldering skills are pretty good :)
Thanks very much! With every soldering project I take on, I feel like my skill and confidence increases. Practice is definitely the key I’ve found 🙂
This was the GPU that solidified my love for PC gaming. It made Unreal and Unreal Tournament look amazing back then (which were my favorite games). I was sick when 3DFX went out of business, I tried to keep it up to date with 3rd party drivers but eventually succombed when nVidia released the Geforce 4 Ti4200 which I used till the FX series launched.
Very underrated , keep working love ur work...
Know I see as 3.4k . KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!
Great video Mike, glad things are going well. Well done project here, super cool you got it working. In my head, this is still an unattainable high end GPU of amazement.
Nice digital magnifier.
Thanks so much, Spladam! The Tomlov digital microscope I got was very much worth the investment. It makes doing this type of work so much easier 👍
Great work, it always pays out to be patient and keep working on a problem
Man, I can't quite define what it is, but there's something so cosy for me about the Windows 2000 look ... I used to be able to spend ages just moving the mouse around and enjoying the shadow!
That background shade too!
Agreed! I loved all the subtle UI changes in 2000 the first time I saw it.
From 1k subs, to 3.3k subs. You are going well 😄
EPIC video man. KEEP M COMING
Such a great video. I had one of these cards brand new back in the day and then Voodoo went under- so it sat around until I ditched it- very disappointing looking back; I should have kept it. So glad you persevered; you deserved this win !
Thanks so much! :)
Fantastic vid! Just found you randomly. I have a 5500 coming in from eBay I bought cheap that has a broken fan blade on one of the vga coolers. So that'll be ... fun. I'm going to put aftermarket heatsinks over each chip and then have a large fan cooling the two mounted above them. I'm hoping the rest of the card works as he says it does.
Thanks very much for your comment! I saw the photos of your new 5500 on Twitter. Best of luck with the cooling system modification. Enjoy the awesome card! :)
That's awesome! You've almost inspired me to pick up a soldering iron and start playing with some older parts from my stash... almost.. lol.
Grats on 1K! I hit that mark a few months ago. It's a great feeling :)
Thanks so much! Congrats on the recent milestone as well!
i subscribed today, i discovered this channel thanks to the youtube algorithm, congratulations on your +1K subs
Thanks very much! :)
Nice fixes, well worked.
Good luck with the channel.
Thanks very much! 🙂
That's a really cool card. Interesting piece of history.
I have the same behavior on a FX 5700U...your video inspired my to fix that card !! thanks
Wow! What a magnificent job you produced on that board. I loved.
👑👑👑
Uau! Que trabalho magnífico você produziu nessa placa. Adorei.
Thanks so much! :)
Excellent video. You did a great job with telling the story of fixing the card. As for your soldering skills, you did just fine. 👍
Thanks very much! :)
I still have my original voodoo5 5500! Man I played the hell out of Tribes back then with it.
You're right to recap the card. 80s and 90s SMD electrolytics are notorious for seal failure and leaking. What's insidious about SMD electrolytics is that the base of the cap will wick the leaked electrolyte and keep it under the cap, keeping the problem hidden a lot longer than a normal radial or axial cap.
I've had to recap all of my Voodoo cards because of leaking SMD electrolytics, as well as tons of other electronics from the era with SMD caps.
Very true! So much harder to spot bad SMDs than TH vented caps that's for sure. I've got all the caps required, just need to find some time. Will probably replace the two big polymer ones too for good measure.
Thats a great job on the repair and awesome perseverance to keep going at it. The old retro hardware can really test your patience sometime. Plus it's great to see another iconic card brought back to life and working again. I hope we get to see it in a future build sometime!
Thanks so much! It was a lot of work but these 3dfx cards are always worth the effort 😁
that 3dmark footage at the end, on frame rates a bit shy of what my geforce2 used to get, triggered a chain of memories. good times.
Nice work, thanks for video, cheers from Argentina
A tip for soldering SMDs : Tin all the pads before placing the chip, aligning might be a bit harder, but all you have to do is secure 2 pins to keep it locked up then you can drag your iron without any solder in it, the soldier thats in the pads will do the job, i would apply gentle pressure on top of the chip just to make sure it all remains solid while dragging.
Having a knife type tip helps, then all you have to do is nudge test the pins once you're done.
Thanks for the tips!
Congratulations on your +1K subs!
I can honestly say that your videos are very satisfying to watch. The fact that you’re also very satisfied by the results of your work, makes the videos perfect. Thanks for that!
Thanks so much for your comment and the kind words, I really appreciate it!
Kudos for honesty and insights. GG
I had this card back in the day, it was a beast
Amazing work!!! What a beast!
Really enjoyed this! Thanks mate!
Hugeee effort bro congratz amazing job!!
Thanks for such experience!
i remember when those cards were announced but i never got my hands on one. i rocked the voodoo 3 for a long time.
Great tenacity. Great work.
Thanks 👍🙂
Nice job man! Was on the edge of my seat the whole time..
Thanks very much! 🙂
I'm somewhat of a beginner myself as well on soldering. But i found that if i absolutely soak the board on flux, the dragging works and i have no blobs/bridges. And even if i get bridges, again soaking it in flux makes it magically disappear when touched with iron.
But as you, i'm also probably doing it wrong, but this has so far worked for me.
Thanks for the tip! .. Flux can definitely work some magic. I'm going to try to add more when I start seeing the bridges next time. I need to experiment with some different iron tips too.
I've found that there are so many ways to "get the job done" - not necessarily wrong, but some take longer or make more of a mess. Hey, what whatever works and you are most comfortable with is the way to go :)
I bet the original owner, who "wasn't able" to test this card, is so mad right now. haha! Totally makes it worth it.
Excellent :)
wow love your video i still have those voodo 3dfx cards, the voodoo2, banshee, and voodoo 3 im still looking for all models
Just found your channel and I'm really enjoying the content. A recommendation to add to your tools, a 12w precision iron. Personally I've always used the Antex 12w. It makes working with smd components where you have to use an iron childsplay, far far easier. 👍
Thanks very much and thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely look into one.
This video is absolute shock for me. Must pull this card out of the pile and keep it somewhere safe...
Really interesting video, Glad you fixed it. (subbed)
I was clapping when fixed :)
Very cool video! When I was last at my parents' house in 2017 I founded my old Voodoo 5 5500 AGP card, but I didn't bring it home with me as I had so many other retro gaming finds there that I needed to fit in my suitcase.😅 I have an old 440BX motherboard with a P3 700MHz and 384 MB of SDRAM. I've been thinking of putting Windows 98SE on it and making it a retro gaming late 90's and earlier PC gaming machine. I wonder if my card still works. It worked when I took it out, but it's been sitting for years untested.
Great work man.
Practice practice practice that slide soldering technique. I used to just use junk being thrown away at goodwills and stuff like that to practice with.
Also, I would've replaced all the ram chips.
Thanks! I definitely need to find some time to get more practice with drag soldering. I would have liked to replace all the RAM, but was still quite nervous every time I did a chip. Maybe once I get some more experience I'll go back and do the others too :)
Job looks clean to me. Don't worry. Some extra solder on the ends may protect parts from getting knocked off again. Good going.
Thanks very much! 👍
Nicely done sir.
you did very well. thanks for showing. 😊
Good for you, bud.
i saw that solder bridge immidiately as you showed the finished chip, it was clearly visible
Tooty Doody's xD 11:28 also, very well made video sir
Thanks very much! 🙂
adding a good liquid flux to the pins makes removing solder bridges on fine-pin footprints very easy
Fantastic job with the repairs on this. I dabble in stuff like this and have fixed many cards over the years, but I haven't done any surface mount memory or chip swapping yet. It would be super helpful if you could let us know what temperatures you use on your iron and hot air station when performing the various tasks you're doing. If you still remember now what you used that would be great, but for future videos it'd be awesome to hear what temp your iron is running at, at least a few times during the video.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks! Good idea, I’ll be sure to include that for future videos. I generally keep my iron at 725-750, which works well in most situations. For hot air, I’d have to check but I think it’s about 385C/725F as well.
Its a really cool card. If only i got one before the prices went through the roof.
The dream tho would be one of those remade voodoo cards (shaman?) It's amazing and if only i had the money i would buy it in a heartbeat.
Nice work. And that second memory replacement wasn't a waste. You said yourself you'd improved your skills, so it was great follow-up practice if nothing else. Also, drag soldering seems to be easier on newer boards. Better solder mask maybe, and no corrosion? That, and a new, small wedge tip combined with generous flux and finding a "good" tip temperature (if you have the option) can really help.
Amazing fix
Congratulations
Waiting for VooDoo 5 6000 :)
Nice job Mike Your video refreshed my young age memories, I desperately wanted a voodoo card but my parents didn't budge LOL.
Anyway, please change your flux, it will make your repairs much cleaner. Something like Amtech 559
Thanks for your comment! The more experience I get soldering, the more I can appreciate what a big difference quality flux can make. I actually just picked up some Amtech 559 based on some other people's recommendations too (seems to be highly regarded). It works so much better than the regular rosin paste I was using before, that's for sure.
Great job, congrats. And you have a new subscriber :)
Thanks so much! 🙂👍
It's funny how many of us have this same exact problem. I guess I need to get off my rear and try this on my V5.
lol nice work. i am happy to see that it is working, Can i contact with you about my old voodoo 3. It is not working and need your help about it.
Thanks very much 🙂 Happy to help if I can. I responded to your message on Twitter.
Pretty clean soldering joints there man. 👍 😎
And yes the blue artifacting is from bad SDRAM modules. The Hyundai RAM used on many cards was known for failing fairly bad, especially with the 1.18 BIOS. The SK Hynix SDRAM was actually much better to have and was more stable.
I remember playing EverQuest on that GPU, with the GLide API and the AA on it looked great. Had the 5500 AGP version of it, was a great card eventually replaced it with a Geforce2 Ultra 64 down the road.