3dfx VooDoo / retro rig / capacitor thread

Just got my order if 77 capacitors!! Yup 77 haha.. out of 9 old motheboards 3 needed fixing that i can tell.. only one board i decided to swap out all caps and thats a abit be6-II. Special board to me and i have prob over 30 intel p2-p3 cpus to test out in it... i think the first custom build i built back in 1996 was a abit bh6.

I finally got around to stepping up and buying a solder station! No more cheap irons for me.. not for this huge job. Went all out and got a solder holder and work rubber base and expensive vent as well.

Gona be a big fun winter project. :)

Now to just get my father to truck over my old mame arcade cab out of his basement.. sure theres more caps to be replaced in that as well.
 
Good stuff there. And the sticker made me - lol. These are the kind of thread/jack which are cool.

Here is one that has me stumped. Diamond Multimedia. Sound & video combined in a twin level card.
It's not sound. The MVP-2000 was a capture card, if I'm not mistaken. The video card underneath uses an S3 ViRGE chip.
 
Most welcome, and will do!

I have a few 3Dfx cards myself, but I was always more interested in the unique ones from Quantum3D. They made ones from Arcade Cabinets to Military Simulators.
I had their Obsidian 100SB which was a Dual Voodoo 1 card (they kinda pioneered multiple cards in one, as far as I'm concerned), but sold that over a decade ago for like three times what I bought it for (paid like $45, bought/sold early 2000s). You couldn't get a sense of the length there, and so here it is next to a GeForce SDR (aka GF1)
I believe I still have an Obsidian 200SB somewhere Dual Voodoo 2 card, which is basically the same as the Obsidian X-24 consumer version. It was an arcade card.
Then my pride and joys...
A very-very-very rare "Sensor Post Processor" card which has a Voodoo 3 at it's heart but DVI output, and was physically connected via header pins and basically did Shader effects for these next two... (It's attached to one of them in that picture, sorry for the bad quality it was a ~2001 3MP camera lol)
Then I have two of the only very-very rare AAlchemy 8132 with 8x VSA-100 (V5 chips) and 32MB each. These pics are of the 8164 with 64MB/each but otherwise same cards, I just don't have any of mine handy...
Front, Back, Crazy power adapter (Yes, that sticker is legit, and Q3D engineers had a great sense of humor!), SPP+8132+Power

Unfortunately that 8132 required a unique PSU which put out 2.5-2.7V to feed these cards, so I've never actually gotten to use them. I do have drivers though, and I know the SPP works :D I actually came up with a way and shared it with others long ago (a 30-40A Adjustable Solid State Buck Converter), which proved to work so I'm glad it's not hopeless :p

[/thread hijack]

LONG LIVE 3DFX!

How can you talk about all those epic cards while not talking about this one?!?!?!

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Love this thread! A trip down memory lane.

How does one start putting together a retro PC? Just search around on eBay and such I guess?

Pretty much, or see if a friend/family member/school college etc has some unwanted kit. They are great for older games if you don't want the hassle of setting up VM's or multi boot systems. I've got 2, an Athlon XP that still gets used regularly and an old Pentium 90 that's needs some work doing to it.
 
Great thread! Makes me bring out my 386 from the basement and fire up some old DOS classics, but I just haven't got the room for it :(
 
Love this thread! A trip down memory lane.

How does one start putting together a retro PC? Just search around on eBay and such I guess?
Like Nathan_P said, ask if anyone has an old system tucked away in the closet/attic/garage/storage that is only there because they can't be bothered to take the time to throw it away. Basically, I think the easiest way to word that question to these people would be: "You don't by chance have any really old computers collecting dust that you've forgotten about or simply never found time to take to the haz-mat dump, that I could relieve you of? :D" (The smile is important! Srsly...)

Often times, since they're systems of an advanced age, they'll know that it'd take more money to eBay, ship, drive to a dump, and recognize you'd be doing them a favor by simply letting you taking it. If they're worried about 'sensitive material' left on the hard drive, there's always two options there: 1] remove the hard drive (and ideally disassemble it on the spot to salvage out those awesome Neodymium magnets). 2] format it either right there on the spot, or set up a time they can watch you do it (should it need a bit of work to breathe life into it again, or simply lack of a monitor).

Even if they want like $20 or so, that's often worth it alone if it was a DIY system and has even an OK motherboard. Just stay away from "PC Chips" motherboards :p Also worth noting is a lot of vendors used basically DIY boards in their systems. This HP I have with an AMD S754 is like 99% the same as one of ASUS' retail models, just had a crippled BIOS, but I managed to unlock all the goodies through old BIOS mod programs (the Award BIOSes are the easiest to restore hidden features w/o any modding knowledge).


<BEGIN: Bored Ramblings>
Also, don't pass up an opportunity to snag one of those All-Aluminum Mac Pro towers... While they use a funky PSU and even funkier motherboard layout that'd require a ton of mod work to fit ATX components in.... you'll walk out of there with a good HDD and Optical drive minimum. However, it's more than likely you'll come out with at least 2-4 nice Delta 92mm tri-blade fans, and also likely with Water Cooling gear (some single CPU, some dual CPU), which the pumps they came with were nice as I understand it from research I did on the one I got for free.

BE WARNED:
Those Delta Fans, while awesome despite being tiny by today's standards.... have a real shitty Mac pinout with all-black wiring... I think mine came with 3 of those Tri-blades and then a nice Blower fan, but I burned out all of the tri-blades :cry::cry: First was me trying to figure it out on my own. Second was misinterpreting the info I found on a forum post. Third was me accidentally causing a short :( I only have like 3 other 92mm fans, two are Delta but one is a fancy server rack with axial vanes that I won't take apart, and the other is one with a round frame that came with a heatsink. So instead of letting that go to waste, I swapped the tri-blade rotor assembly over. Doesn't work nearly as well as the original one due to the much less beefy electro-magnet portion, but still works better with the tri-blade assembly lol (The third was a Sunon, which it's electro-magnet is really peculiar compared to everyone else's and is like 1mm wider, so no other rotor's magnet fits over; thus, I couldn't do the swap)
<END: Bored Ramblings>
 
Uxcell brand? Wont be used much. Need 12 and not willing to blow 3-5 ea on them as ive done in the past.

Woah, where did you pay five dollars for a single cap? I want in on that profit margin.

I recommend going to www.mouser.com if you need capacitors, they have a huge selection of quality vendors of capacitors and other parts. The only gotcha is home shipping is $5 minimum so you'll need a fairly large order to justify it.

The capacitor grab-bags on Ebay or Amazon are usually junk, I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than prototyping or "oh god everything is on fire and burning and it needs to be fixed now."

If I recall correctly, part of the cause for the entire bad cap plague was some improper electrolyte formula got used in bulk by several manufacturers of components. There was also a plague of counterfiet caps as well i seem to recall.

It was a bit of industrial espionage by part of some Taiwanese businessmen who wanted to get into the capacitor business but not have the huge R&D cost of developing an electrolyte, so like any other shady Asian fly by night company, they stole a formula from I think Nichicon. Problem was, the formula was incomplete and quickly degraded when put under thermal stress, leading to venting/leaking.

But companies didn't know this at the time and just went with the cheapest supplier. Sadly, some reputable companies like Nichicon and Rubycon had their names tarnished when the same shady Taiwanese companies started making fake capacitors with name brands and flooding the market with them. If you see an exploded Nichicon or Rubycon capacitor, it's most certainly counterfeit.
 
Woah, where did you pay five dollars for a single cap? I want in on that profit margin.

I recommend going to www.mouser.com if you need capacitors, they have a huge selection of quality vendors of capacitors and other parts. The only gotcha is home shipping is $5 minimum so you'll need a fairly large order to justify it.

The capacitor grab-bags on Ebay or Amazon are usually junk, I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than prototyping or "oh god everything is on fire and burning and it needs to be fixed now."



It was a bit of industrial espionage by part of some Taiwanese businessmen who wanted to get into the capacitor business but not have the huge R&D cost of developing an electrolyte, so like any other shady Asian fly by night company, they stole a formula from I think Nichicon. Problem was, the formula was incomplete and quickly degraded when put under thermal stress, leading to venting/leaking.

But companies didn't know this at the time and just went with the cheapest supplier. Sadly, some reputable companies like Nichicon and Rubycon had their names tarnished when the same shady Taiwanese companies started making fake capacitors with name brands and flooding the market with them. If you see an exploded Nichicon or Rubycon capacitor, it's most certainly counterfeit.


No i wised up and went to digikey and ordered the 77 caps i needed insted since at the time i wasnt even thinking straight that the caps need to fit to the same size as thr originals. $32 bucks plus shipping i believe.

Funny the 2 brands i did go with are Nichicon and Rubycon as i know there top brands.

I've ordered from mouser back when.
 
My caps arrived today. Looked at Mouser first but they did not have the any Rubycon brand which had my mind set on. Newark had decent per piece pricing so purchased there.

Been watching several 3dfx cards on Ebay. The prices these fetch still amazes me. Almost makes me want to sell this Voodoo4 and recoup price I paid for my RX 480.
 
My caps arrived today. Looked at Mouser first but they did not have the any Rubycon brand which had my mind set on. Newark had decent per piece pricing so purchased there.

Been watching several 3dfx cards on Ebay. The prices these fetch still amazes me. Almost makes me want to sell this Voodoo4 and recoup price I paid for my RX 480.

Good luck!!

I just replaced 24 caps (more then needed) on my old soyo k7vta pro v1.0 board that worked a couple of years ago and now it wont post. :/

Gota go back and check all the soldering ive done to see if i broke any traces or a pad is connected to something its not suppoed to. Fun fun fun!

I did have a hell of a time removing most of the caps! Used 3 different desoldering tools and if it didnt get the solder on the first couple of tries it would not come out for nothing. Had to heat the legs and yank it out one leg at a time by tilting the cap to the side. Then do rhe reverse pushing the new cap in cause there would still be solder in the hole! Nuts.

Never had auch a prob in rhe past and this is something ive done a crap load of times in the past from mb's to tv's and arcade boards.

:/
 
fully recapped Abit VP6 , wasn't difficult , a bit tedious , have fun with it

I rebuilt one of my oldy but goldies last year and loaded up everything I could find in my game collection with 3dFX support

2 x PIII 1ghz @1140mhz , Voodoo 5500 AGP , dual boot W2K pro / XP pro , 2 gig Infineon memory , 3 x 18g scsi raid 0 , Killer NIC card , Creative sound , Kenwood TrueX 72x (the fastest CDR ever) my good ol' Sony 21" E540 Trinitron @ 120Hz

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fully recapped Abit VP6 , wasn't difficult , a bit tedious , have fun with it

I rebuilt one of my oldy but goldies last year and loaded up everything I could find in my game collection with 3dFX support

2 x PIII 1ghz @1140mhz , Voodoo 5500 AGP , dual boot W2K pro / XP pro , 2 gig Infineon memory , 3 x 18g scsi raid 0 , Kenwood TrueX 72x (the fastest CDR ever) my good ol' Sony 21" E540 Trinitron @ 120Hz

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Those VP6 boards were awesome!!! I had one with a pair of peltier cooled 3 700s @ 1.05Ghz...I loved that setup!
 
I have a practically new SpaceOrb 360 sitting here if you're interested. It should go well with any retro system. Needs old style game-port input.
 
Rubycon caps on the way. Found caps on other boards bulging yet not burst yet. Including a few on the Abit kr7a that I am using in the Win98 rig right now. Found it interesting that all the bad caps are 6.3v, two different brands, three different 'F' values.

The New In Box Abit KT7A board I got off of eBay had 0 bulging caps.

However, the first time I powered it up, a bunch of the caps literally exploded. There was paper bits plastered on whatever the projectile direction was when they exploded. It was pretty loud as well.

The seller refunded me half after I recapped it and made sure it worked.

With the socket mod and the modded BIOS to support Barton CPUs, I am able to run a mobile 2800+ Barton at 2.2Ghz

Mwahahaha.

Pretty sure it is the about the fastest board that can natively support a Voodoo 5-5500 and has an ISA slot.
 
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The New In Box Abit KT7A board I got off of eBay had 0 bulging caps.

However, the first time I powered it up, a bunch of the caps literally exploded. There was paper bits plastered on whatever the projectile direction was when they exploded. It was pretty loud as well.

The seller refunded me half after I recapped it and made sure it worked.

With the socket mod and the modded BIOS to support Barton CPUs, I am able to run a mobile 2800+ Barton at 2.2Ghz

Mwahahaha.

Pretty sure it is the about the fastest board that can natively support a Voodoo 5-5500 and has an ISA slot.
Ouch! Never had any explode, fortunately.

Nice OC and recap job on that board. You mean fastest on OC basis? Because I seem to remember the KT7a being SDRAM and ata-100. Whereas these KR7a are DDR and ata-133. Main reason I like them with these older vid cards. More speed yet still compatible.
 
fully recapped Abit VP6 , wasn't difficult , a bit tedious , have fun with it

I rebuilt one of my oldy but goldies last year and loaded up everything I could find in my game collection with 3dFX support

2 x PIII 1ghz @1140mhz , Voodoo 5500 AGP , dual boot W2K pro / XP pro , 2 gig Infineon memory , 3 x 18g scsi raid 0 , Killer NIC card , Creative sound , Kenwood TrueX 72x (the fastest CDR ever) my good ol' Sony 21" E540 Trinitron @ 120Hz

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IMG_4282.jpg

amazing build! any more pics of it?
 
not trying to high jack OP's thread ( [H] members already pointed out the best places for 3dFX drivers) but these caps worked perfectly...don't be afraid to get into it , if a board doesn't work then there is no harm in trying

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voodoo 5500
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LSI scsi card
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memory
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Yep ... good catch. Damn capacitor plague. Did not realize they would go bad from sitting as well. A shame since this was final revision of the board that accepted T.bred CPUs. Oh well. One more thing for the electronics recycling bin at the landfill.
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Just solder new ones on sheesh. I could do it blind folded.
 
Just solder new ones on sheesh. I could do it blind folded.
That be the plan, man. Except I won't be using a blindfold. Only safety glasses.

not trying to high jack OP's thread ( [H] members already pointed out the best places for 3dFX drivers) but these caps worked perfectly...don't be afraid to get into it , if a board doesn't work then there is no harm in trying
[H]igh jack away! Good stuff. Thanks for sharing. Rather like the way this thread has morphed.
:cool:
 
Got the one mb working.. tiny piece of solder shorted a trace.

Now finished totally recapping my Abit BE6-2 raid mb and cant wait to test it out later tonight! I have like 30 p2 slot 1 cpus to test hehe.

Also have another 6 other mbs to test like a few popular dfi boards.
 
ha!...my Abit BE-6 ( with the mighty 440BX NB ) rebuild...not recapped , doesn't feel like it needs it ...Voodoo 3500TV...PIII 800 oc'd flip chip on Abit Slotket slot 1 adapter

another Voodoo build , don't know where my 4 series card is..I have one more Voodoo to photo

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Nice! So no buldging caps yet eh?? I had many of them buldging on mine.

Nice cpu! I always was interested in those chips but moved on to amd back then.

Gona slap my 2 voodoo2 12mb cards on this one for fun. The other setup i have working has the voodoo5 5500 on it atm.

Ive also have a banshee card i got in a old pentium 200mmx pc i bought years ago from the salvasion army fir like $45 bucks.. was alot for it but it was sentamental to me cause it was the same nec case as my first pc i bought back in 94.

Ive had all the 3dfx cards back when.. though dont think i ever bought the voodoo4 or 5 when they came out. I believe that voodoo3 tv card was thr last 3dfx card i bought retail. I hated thst card cause the drivers were never good haha
 
Im now an old school pc addict!

How much joy it brings going threw all my old pc part boxes looking at all the cpus,memory,sound cards,hdds,dvd and floppy drives and various video cards and pounds of old accesseries and cables. How lucky am i to of kepted my old 22" nec black crt?? Haha. Hard to find anything used over a 17" today..

Rushed with old memories of better days.

Installing win 98se for the first time in years (what fun haha not!) Slowly remembering all the tweaks i had to do to the os to get it working correctly. Happy i fund a web sit that has win98se updates! Hope thst site works..

Also ive also horded all the software and hardware drivers since 95 and games!

Thrilled i didnt toss it all out when i moved 4 years ago.

Wife best hope i get over this fad before we get the tax check!
 
Damn! Took the heat sink off my nForce2 system to change CPU and the ASUS a7n8x has a bunch of bad caps too. Some actually leaking. All 3300uF Nichicon.

Was running great though that was sure to change soon. Looked fine a couple months ago.
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Damn! Took the heat sink off my nForce2 system to change CPU and the ASUS a7n8x has a bunch of bad caps too. Some actually leaking. All 3300uF Nichicon.

Was running great though that was sure to change soon. Looked fine a couple months ago.
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Good timing.. make sure to clean up any spills real good or it will trash the board.. rubbing alcohol and qtips will do.
 
Good to know about the alcohol. Caught this thing just in time.

Removable mobo trays things so much easier. Switch over RAM and cards, install the CPU and heat sink, then stick it in. No standoffs to deal with. Prefer the Soltek board anyway. More friendly layout, 4-pin connector for more CPU power, *much* better BIOS for overclocking, and caps farther away from the CPU socket allowing more radical cooling.
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Oh man, a Swiftech! You all are making me want to build a retro rig so bad...
 
my wife had the Swiftech like that one , the one that flares the pins. I had the earlier straight up model and ran Sunon 80's on them...I think there is a chance hers is still around...now I have to go on a snipe hunt

and NOW back to the original thread topic!.......
 
Good to know about the alcohol. Caught this thing just in time.

Removable mobo trays things so much easier. Switch over RAM and cards, install the CPU and heat sink, then stick it in. No standoffs to deal with. Prefer the Soltek board anyway. More friendly layout, 4-pin connector for more CPU power, *much* better BIOS for overclocking, and caps farther away from the CPU socket allowing more radical cooling.
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Nice board! What is it?

Ive got an old swiftech like that but straight pins and another one brand new from someone on here years ago.. cant remember if its the same or different now.. have to check it.

I miss my alpha monster heatsink for a p3 slot 1 cpu. :/ large black aluminum fins with brass base. Thing was huge with 2 fans.. still have the fans but i ended up cutting the heatsink up long ago for better graphic card cooling hehe.
 
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